Page 29 of The Promise

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Demyan stood from his seat on the screen, but Maxim was already reaching for the end call button. “Maxim, what are you—”

He smirked at Demyan, and nodded once. “It’s a good night to die, old friend.”

That was all he said before he took another puff of his cigar, and ended the call. Automatically, the settings would delete its record.

At the office doors, the shadow of a figure fell on the frosted glass. He knew exactly who it was and why they were coming. He also planned to make them work for it, too.

Maxim tipped the glass filled with gasoline at the edge, spilling the caustic liquid across his desk, drenching everything it could touch in its spread. He couldn’t make mistakes, he didn’t want to leave any evidence or a chance of survival.

“Maxim!”

The voice echoed as the door opened, but it was already too late. He dropped the cigar with the brightly-burning ash on the desk, sparks igniting the first licks of hot flames.

It spread fast, and brilliant. The fire reached high enough to touch the chandelier hanging overtop the desk in seconds. Enthralled, he couldn’t look away.

Maybe that was his only mistake.

It was through the flames that he saw the gun.

Pointed right at him.

SEVEN

The loudest voice in Karine’s mind made herself known with a sharp hiss—what are you doing?

She recognized the voice well, now—Katina no longer cared when interrupting Karine’s reality—always putting her on edge. That was filled with anxiety and panic every time Karine dared to make any decision on her own.

She didn’t trust her choices. Didn’t believe she could make the right ones, and smothered her with the fear of falling, crashing, and burning.

Yet, she ignored the hissed question, and the loud Karine! Pretending she didn’t hear it at all spurred on the courage she had only experienced once before—the night she asked Roman to come to her room.

“Karine.”

That time, the voice wasn’t in her head. Roman’s murmur of her name also didn’t feel like a question—he wasn’t asking, not again, but he also wasn’t telling her, either.

Karine stepped into the room, and shut the door behind her.

The only light in the room came from what the moon provided in the windows. It wasn’t much. Her eyes didn’t adjust well to the darkness, so she focused on only the shadow of his form lounging in the bed.

Her courage had been enough to lead her into the room, but she couldn’t actually step any closer to him once the door was closed. The war raged inside her head. A battle between the urge to just leave—run out of the room again—and the desire to stay because she wanted to be close to him.

This time, it was only herself she fought with, though. Karine was starting to learn those were actually the hardest fights for her.

Roman was far too quiet for Karine’s liking, and the silence started to get to her in the worst way. She resisted the compulsion to twist her fingers together to ease the anxiety. If he would just say something, then she wouldn’t have to, and she might know what he was thinking.

“Nightmares?” he asked suddenly, and Karine breathed her relief out in a whoosh. “Have you been having them a lot recently?”

Forcing the lump down that had formed in her throat to keep her quiet, she finally found her own voice again. .

“Yeah, I think so,” Karine whispered.

She couldn’t be sure because she never remembered what happened in the nightmares. Instead, she often woke up with a racing heart, airless as she gasped to catch her breath, and a heaviness weighing down her very soul. Still, with absolute certainty, she knew that she had seen something in her sleep that had made her afraid.

And sad.

That heaviness was always sad.

“What was the nightmare about tonight?” Roman questioned.