Page 78 of Lord of Passion

Caroline…

"I thought you were dead," I repeat, instantly furious.

"Oh, you're not the only one," he says with a good humor that is deeply creepy. "And yet, here I am."

"Simply maintaining a pulse is hardly living, old man," I say. "Do you know who I am? I'm Liria's cousin, her best friend, you heartlesspiece of shit."

"I know who you are," he says, two fingers twitching as if he intended to wave his hand negligently, and this is the best he could do. "Johann told me he was bringing his new bride here. I knew that you would come by and pay your respects at some point. Based on your behavior, it is clear that he must knock some sense and good manners into you."

It feels like I'm hearing him talk from a distance. The beeping sound drifts away, as well as the rest of the room. There's only me and this animated corpse speaking to me. Only his eyes are recognizable, black and glittering with malice. I feel funny, I'm not scared, not even angry.

With someone this pathetic and withered, I should feel some pity, right? He's still talking, but whatever he's saying is notregistering. I think of what Liria suffered. About the monsters he forced her to interact with. The man who almost raped her as a teenager. I think of all the terrible things he's done, all the men and women who are dead because of him.

His fucking withered mouth is still moving, like anything he says matters. When I blink, I'm right next to his bed, my hands gripping one of the steel bed rails. For the first time he looks uncertain. There's a remote next to him, probably for the TV but I see a red nurse's button too. Dritan's stick-like fingers are creeping toward it and I pull it away from him, setting it on the table, out of reach.

"You know what, old man?" I say conversationally. I don't recognize my voice, I feel like I'm standing outside myself, watching some new lethal combination of me form. "You tried to sell Liria, your daughter, your only living child into a marriage where she would act as a target for everyone's hatred for you. But she and Alexsey arewildlyin love. They're incredibly happy and she has the family she always wanted."

I lean a bit closer. "Your ex-wife Allegra is engaged to a wonderful man here in Boston who treats her like a goddess. Your money and your power have been absorbed into the Morozov Bratva andno oneremembers your motherfucking name."

His eyes, black as beetles, continue to watch me as his little slash of a mouth opens and closes again.

"Johann was yapping about you last night. His mentor. The man who taught him everything he knows," I say.

Yeah. This is Angry as Fuck Caroline. She doesn't come out often, but when she does, I can only stand back and watch hergo. "The last of your pathetic little legacy will be gone, once the Morozovs kill him."

I smile, reaching out and straightening his bedsheet. His gaze darts down quickly before they raise to my face again. "I've never killed anyone, you know? There are certainly people I'vewantedto kill, including my husband once or twice." I laugh a little, remembering his smile as I kissed him goodbye yesterday. "But I think I love him. No, I'm sure I do," I say thoughtfully. "I love Nikandr. I'm also incredibly depressed that the first time I admit it is in front of a reanimated troll like you."

My gaze wanders over his monitors and his machines until I find the one handling his oxygen. There's a clear tube that runs over his shoulder and then fits into the nasal cannula under his nose looped and over his ears. My dad had one. It didn't save him. My parents died, but this pile of human garbage got a long, full life.

"Some people would think that was unsporting to kill a man who's already spiraling into a death rattle," I say. I reach for the tube, holding it up. There's a fair amount of it between the oxygen tank in his body, and I bend it over and pinch it shut. His vitals monitor begins beeping, faster, agitated as his hands flutter like frightened birds. "That's really all that's keeping you going, isn't it?" I open the tube again and his blue lips regain their former gray hue as he takes a raspy inhale.

"Even though you know you're going to die," I say. "You're never ready for it are you? Especially not someone like you. You have to know you're going straight to hell. I mean, if there is an afterlife. I think there is. You will be waist deep in boiling tar for all of eternity."

I pinch the hose again, still feeling outside of myself. I'm wondering who this hard-faced psycho is pinching off a man's oxygen supply. His lips turned blue again and I unpinch thehose, letting the oxygen flow. "That one was for Liria waking up screaming for years after she came back from your hellhole in Durrës. For. Years."

"Stop," he hisses at me, like a reptile. "Howdareyou? Johann will cut you to pieces for this."

Leaning closer, I can see my face reflected in his black beetle eyes. "She never told me all of it, I know she didn't. You beating your poor wife to death and making her watch it? Killing people for fun? Did you know how kind your daughter is? How pure? She's a concert pianist and a spectacular mother and I'm hoping her body has pushed all of your malignant DNA out. Somehow."

My voice has a strange, dream-like quality and I'm getting a little bit scared of myself. Bending the hose in half again and lifting the pillow under his head, I slip the pinched hose underneath it. The fragile weight of his head and the pillow are enough to keep it closed off. The machines are beeping faster, more desperately now and I walk over to unplug everything.

I walk back over and fold my arms, watching his feeble struggle. "People tried to kill Liria, because of you. She was almost shot. Stabbed. Blown up. Nearly- nearly raped. Because ofyou."I can feel the hate coming from Dritan, his endless rage, even as his black gaze is fading.

"You're killing yourself. Not me."

I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to my parents. My brothers were already in caskets at the mortuary when I saw them for the last time.

This is a horrifyingly intimate moment. When he takes his last breath, I wait. For what, I don't know, some kind of malignant cloud of evil? It stays inside his human shell, his monster.

Walking out the bedroom door, I hear the first explosion and the mansion shudders. I'm not going into the secret passageway as the house is coming down. I run toward the stairway, praying that Nikandr is setting off these explosions. That he's going to get me out of here.

I stumble, almost falling before I grab hold of the banister.

Men are rushing back and forth but one man is standing by the stairway, speaking urgently into his security mic. It's Nikandr. It's my husband.

"Nikandr!" I shout. "Here, I'm here!" I race down the stairs, he steps closer but when I reach out my arms for him, he steps back. I don't understand. He's not smiling.

"I'm here," I repeat stupidly. "I'm safe. You're here for me. Right?" Fuck, that sounded so stupid.