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I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answer to my next question, but I asked it anyway. “What did you do to him?”
“I paid him back tenfold.”
There wasn’t a speck of regret in his voice. I clutched the pillow to my stomach.
He walked to the door. “I’ll let you know about the funeral arrangements. I’ll send Olga up later to see if you need anything.”
“I need my mom,” I said softly.
“I can give you anything in the world, but that,” he said looking over his shoulder.
I broke down sobbing, stricken by grief. As I looked into his dark eyes I knew I’d been right about him the first time; he was Hades, and for better or worse, I was like Persephone.
The door behind him shut ominously. He didn’t have to tell me, I already knew. From this day forward, my life would be halfway immersed in the underworld.
Generally speaking, the Way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death.
— Miyamoto Musashi
I can live with death, as long as I get to take some people with me to Hades.
— Kristoff Romanov
9
KRISTOFF
The next morning during my meeting with Viking I thought about the night before. There was something about the way Katya held her head high, daring and regal. She was like a butterfly dancing in a hurricane. My world would chew her up and spit her out. She would never last.
I shouldn’t have kissed her. More importantly, I shouldn’t be thinking about it while discussing how to wipe out the Jamaicans.
The taste of her lips had been like an explosion of sweetness on my tongue. Had I studied poetry instead of military history, I’d have sung her praises. Something about her innocence, mixed with the fire inside her, spoke to me. I should stop thinking like that, or I’d end up like Icarus flying to the sun.
Feelings got you killed. I never imagined myself dying of old age. Men in my line of work usually didn’t. But Ididintend to live long enough to avenge my mother. No one would thwart those plans. No one.
I shouldn’t have fucking tasted her. It wasn’t the logical thing to do. So why had I?
You couldn’t handle the thought of someone else stealing her first kiss.
Also, you knew it’d be your last.
I looked up when Viking said something. He sat on the couch across from me enjoying a whiskey while going over our plan of attack.
When I quirked a brow, he said, “I asked if you told her yet?”
“Yes, I ripped off the bandage.” Of course, I’d only told her half of it. I’d kept the other part, the darkest part to myself. I couldn’t shake off the memory of her grief-stricken face. Perhaps that was why I’d told her about my mom. I should have seen the next set of questions coming.
“What did you do after her death?”
Followed a demon into hell to be trained to become a monster.
“I grieved.”
By going on a killing spree for Sokolov.
“How long...did that take?”
Five fucking gruesome years, of which one was spent in icy Siberia.
