Page 116 of Brutal Vows

As soon as Luca and Masha walk back into the cabin, I know nobody is changing Masha’s mind tonight. Luca might have tried, but she’s dragged him over to her side. Even if it wrecks him, she has him in her court. I still don’t know what’s in the godforsaken cooler box in the trunk, but he shakes his head at me, a barely perceptible gesture not to ask. I take in his clenched jaw, his bloodshot eyes. He’s in pain too, but this is beyond physical.

“We need to stage this as I planned,” Masha says as she walks up to me. “I don’t want them to think it was suicide. If we make them believe these two killed me, and some other Bratva killed them in turn, they could war over what happened here for years.”

At her words, my heart bleeds, my soul running empty of all my childhood joy, but my head understands. “Masha⁠—”

“Where’s Zoe?” Luca asks. “Is she ready? And her things? All packed? We can’t leave the baby bag behind.”

“She’s sleeping,” I say, standing between them and the door leading to the adjacent room. We have so little, there’s nothing much to take. “Do you want to see her, say good—” I choke up.

“No. She won’t miss me, and I said goodbye to her already. So many times.” Masha squeezes my wrist, but I can’t stop my tears. “She was never mine, Milana. Just keep playing those beautiful piano pieces for her, you know the ones she loved? It will be our eternal bond as we listened to you together. I missed listening to you play.”

“Yes,” I manage, but I am an emotional wreck. Those pieces will now always be a double-edged sword.

Luca limps around the room and finds the two guns I’d placed on the shelf. He checks the magazines and puts one back.

“Princess.” He looks up, exhales. “You need to step outside.”

He’s actually going to do this. My husband would do this horrible thing to spare Masha. To spare me.

My stomach turns; I’m a trapped animal.

But the reality is that keeping Masha alive will only open her up to more torment. This is a necessary coup de grâce, the same as Ivan delivered to Dimitri.

I see it now. Ivan and Dimitri. The final fight in my music room. Dimitri’s blood all over the Steinway. Every emotion my brother must have had in those few minutes seems to burst through me. And one of them is love. Intense love.

Ivan might have killed his best friend because he had to, fighting for his life, but that’s what he told me. Those last few minutes, the last few seconds, were much more complicated than they seemed.

I bet he had the option to keep him alive. Yuri and Ivan in that room together, Dimitri unarmed when Yuri kicked the gun from his hand. In that split second, my brother had a choice. He could have kept Dimitri alive. Used him. Dangled him like raw meat in front of Chertnikov for years. They could have broken his body, tortured and maimed him until he was nothing but an emaciated cage for a haunted soul. A few simple stabs would have immobilized him, but Ivan chose to show his best friend mercy and save him from the only other Bratva alternative. It was his final act of love for a friend who betrayed him.

And here I am, summoned to help my best friend exact revenge on a man who would have treated me the same way he treated her, if he’d had me in his hold.

It’s the same desire for revenge I’ve been choking on for months, ever since my eyes were opened to the truth behind Dimitri’s attentions and his feigned love for me.

Masha and me. Always of the same mind.

I shudder, and for a few fleeting seconds, memories of Masha and me at this cabin drift through my mind. Sweet, golden summers spent in this rustic haven away from the real world. As we swam carefree in the lake. Picked berries in the forest. Always aware of the dangers out there—wolves, bears, moose—but somehow protected by our own innocence and ignorance. Little did we know the humans would be the biggest threat. The network our fathers belonged to, the work they did in the cities as our moms escaped with us for a few blissful weeks where we could just be kids.

Memories of seeing her the first time after her abortion and subsequent attack flood my mind, and I can’t go back there. Her suffering has been long enough. Seven years is a long time to beg for death.

Quietly, I pull Chertnikov’s plastic gun from my coat pocket, keeping the muzzle facing the floor.

“I love you,” I whisper to Masha. “I’ll miss you. You’re in my heart, with me forever. Thank you for keeping Annushka safe.”

She nods. “I love you too. Always.”

She looks at Luca now, where he is waiting for me to leave the cabin.

I don’t flinch. I don’t think. “This is my honor,” I whisper as I raise the gun, step up, and shoot her in the forehead, trying to catch her as she slumps. But she’s too heavy, and I let her slide to the floor.

And then, I’m in his arms, sobs tearing through my chest.

He doesn’t hush me, and I feel his chest shudder with his own emotions. He cups my head, keeping me close.

“I couldn’t let you do it.” This was my duty, not his. “I couldn’t let it drag on. I didn’t want her to see it coming.”

“That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Her pain was too much. I—I—” I try to catch my breath, all the emotions overwhelming me.