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Saint is torn, knowing he will aim for her head. A fatal shot.
“Okay! Enough.” He bends down and picks up the gun he kicked from one of our attackers’ hand. He is trembling when he swivels to face me.
I stand motionless and raise my hands in surrender. I trust him.
Pavel is creeping toward Zoey, his eyes still peeled on Ingrid. Something lingers on the horizon. Since Ingrid has the bomb strapped under her jacket, what does she plan on doing with it?
Alek wrestles to break free, but Serg grips the back of his neck, grinning. “Now it’s your turn to watch the one you love die.”
“Saint, don’t you dare do this! She doesn’t deserve this.”
Saint inhales sharply, tipping his face to the heavens.
“I’m so sorry, Willow,” Alek cries, wriggling against Serg’s hold. “I never meant this for you. That’s why I left without saying goodbye. I didn’t want this for you.”
“Too late now,” Oscar singsongs.
Astra is awfully quiet, and I can only hope that’s because she’s had a change of heart. When she strolls forward, I hold my breath. “I don’t want to kill you, Alek. Zoya has been like a mother to me.” I recognize the necklace she’s wearing, the one Zoya gave her. “But you must understand, I can’t allow Borya’s death to go unpunished. Someone needs to pay.”
“I know that,” he pleads, looking at her with remorse. “But not Willow. She is innocent in all of this.”
Oscar scoffs, his finger poised on the trigger.
“What can I do? To save her?” He is bargaining for my life.
Astra runs a hand down her ruined face, appearing to be in thought. “Nothing, Alek. She’s a dead woman walking.”
“??? ??????, please. Anything. Whatever you want, I will give you.” I recognize the phrase he just used. He called her my love.
Something changes in her. I can see it. She was once loved, her beauty unrivaled, just as the queen was inSnow White. But now, she’s shown her true form of the haggard old witch which lay hidden behind her charm.
“You were the one who blew up Alek’s home?” she addresses Zoey. Pavel stops dead in his tracks.
Zoey’s eyes are wide as she fights against the knife at her throat. “Yes,” she replies without remorse.
Astra mulls over her response. “So you and Pavel were really the ones who killed Borya then?”
Shit.
This isn’t going according to plan.
Zoey doesn’t back down and isn’t intimated in the slightest. “I suppose we are.”
“Maybe we can come to a compromise then?” Astra says to Alek.
“What is it?”
“I need a king, seeing as mine was taken away.”
When Oscar pales, we realize this has run off its course.
Astra hobbles closer toward Alek, coming to a stop before him. “Who will want me now? I’m ruined.” She turns her cheek, shielding her face behind the large hood of her jacket.
“No, you are still just as beautiful,” Alek says, peering up at her. He is so playing her. But it works.
“Let him go,” Astra commands Serg, who shakes his head, angered she would suggest such a thing. “I said let him go!”
I lick my lips, horrified by what I’m witnessing.
