Page 209 of I’m The Worst

“So I kept looking. I stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. I stopped giving a shit about anything except finding you.” He pauses, eyes on mine. “I hated you.”

I stop breathing.

“I hated what you were doing to me. I hated myself more.” The gun feels like it weighs a hundred pounds, resting against my temple. “You stopped being a mission long before I found you.”

The room feels too small, too loud, my head floating somewhere just above my body as I stare at him through tears that won’t stop falling.

“Why… Why are you telling me this now?” leaves me in a broken whisper.

He opens his mouth, then closes it again, frustration carving across his face like he’s fighting something he doesn’t know how to say.

“I…” He drags a harsh breath into his lungs and scrubs a blood-smeared hand over his mouth. “I don’t know how… I know how to hunt people. I know how to kill them. I know how to survive. That’s all I fucking know. I don’t know how to…” The words catch in his throat so hard I can see him physically fighting them. “I don’t know how to love somebody…but⁠—”

My heart forgets how to beat.

“I love you, AJ.” His voice is raw, like the admission is being torn out of him. “I’ve loved you since before I understood what the fuck was happening to me. I knew you were wrong for me. I knew I’d ruin you. So I did the only thing I knew how to do…” His eyes squeeze shut for the briefest second, like even saying it hurts. “I tried to make you hate me.”

My chest caves in, a sob clawing its way up my throat. He loves me. The monster who I still crave in the worst, sickest parts of myself—he loves me. And it changes nothing and everything all at once.

“I pushed you away because I knew what would happen if I didn’t. I don’t feel things the way I’m supposed to. I don’t speak unless I have to. I don’t touch unless it’s to kill. I don’t know how to let people close without destroying them.”

Shaking his head, he drags a hand over his face.

“I was so fucking obsessed with getting you home that when I finally found you…when they put you on that stage…” His hands clench into fists, the tendons standing out beneath his skin. “I told myself it was necessary. I told myself it was the only way to save you. But the worst part… The part that makes me want to tear my own fucking skin off every goddamn day is that I wanted it. I enjoyed it. My cock was buried inside you while you were crying…while you were terrified…and I fucking wanted it.”

A sob tears out of me. I can barely see him through the tears.

His voice is raw now, stripped down to something that barely sounds like him. “I’ve spent every single day since Russia hating myself for it. For not being able to find another way. For not finding you sooner. I looked at you afterward, and all I could see was what I’d become. The same monster that raped me when I was a kid. I became them, AJ. I raped you. I raped you, and part of me liked it.” He looks physically sick saying it. “I failed you in Russia, and the Sovereign promoted me. Pinned a fucking medal on my chest. Called me a hero for the worst fucking day of my life.”

The words break something inside me. “Wolff. You saved me”

“No. I destroyed you. And I needed you to hate me because I couldn’t survive watching you chain your life to the worst part of mine. So I lied. And I hurt you. I pushed you away. Called you desperate. I wanted you to believe every fucking word.”

His eyes fill with tears I never thought I’d see him shed. “But I swear on every body I’ve ever buried, I did not rape you in this house. I’d slit my fucking throat before I’d ever hurt you like that again.”

Slowly, he reaches one shaking hand toward me.

“Please…” His fingers stop just inches from the barrel pressed against my temple. “I’m begging you, solnyshko.”

For the first time since I’ve known him…

He cries.

“Please…give me the gun.”

Blood drips from my fingertips onto the hardwood as I hold my hand out, mixing with the rainwater pooling beneath my boots. I barely feel it.

All I can see is the gun pressed against her temple.

Her breathing comes in uneven sobs. Her pupils are blown so wide they’re swallowing the hazel I’ve memorized.

“Please.” For the first time in my fucking life, I’m begging. “Give me the gun.”

I’ll beg until my voice gives out if it means she doesn’t squeeze that trigger. I see the fight happening inside her head—the part of her that still wants to live clawing against the part that’s simply too tired to keep hurting.

My hand hovers inches from the barrel.

I don’t move any closer. One wrong step. One twitch. One loud breath, and she’ll pull the trigger. I’ve seen that look before. Men cornered. Hostages. Soldiers who’d decided death sounded easier than tomorrow. I know what comes next.