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“I don’t want you,” Kreshnik grits out. “I want everyone around you. I want to pick apart your life like a vulture, leaving so little even the maggots wouldn’t want it. I want you to suffer the way you’ve made me—”
His voice cuts off. Emotion I didn’t think he was capable of clogging his throat.
I step forward, speaking softly. “Then take me. I was ready to spend the rest of my life with Timofey. I was going to give my entire self to him and our family. I… I love him.”
Is that a soft inhale behind me or am I imagining it? I’m not sure, but I can’t turn around to see. If I do, I won’t be able to stop myself from running to Timofey.
I keep my eyes on Kreshnik. “I love him, and if you take me… it will as good as kill him.”
Timofey’s voice is thunder and the rage of the ocean. It’s a wail of anger and pain I’ve never heard before. “No! Take me instead! Don’t—”
“Done.” Kreshnik nods once. “But you need to come with me now; otherwise, Timofey won’t let me leave this room.”
Timofey moves towards me, but Kreshnik wraps a hand around Benjamin’s tiny neck. “Don’t forget I still have the little one. Make any sudden movements, and he’s gone.”
Timofey is fuming behind me, his breath coming in fits and starts.
“Put him in the basket,” I tell Kreshnik. “I’ll follow you over there. You can transfer from him to me. Timofey won’t be able to kill you while I’m standing in front of you.”
I can hear Timofey growl in frustration, and I hope he can forgive me someday.
Kreshnik carefully backs towards the bassinet, his eyes never shifting away from where Timofey stands near the doorway. I follow him.
Anytime I get too close to him and Benjamin, Kreshnik warns me away.
“Move here,” he says, pointing to the cement floor a foot in front of him. “Don’t move while I drop the baby.”
“While you place him carefully, you mean?”
He rolls his eyes. “Worry about your part and let me worry about mine. The baby will be fine.”
I intend to do just that.
I hold my breath as Kreshnik lowers Benjamin into the basket. He’s watching Timofey, making sure the gun is still pointed at the floor.
He isn’t paying attention to me at all.
Which is why as soon as Benjamin is out of his hands, I lunge.
I’ve been holding onto the metal rod so tightly for so long that it is sweaty against my palm. But I let it slide down into my hand, draw my arm back, and drive it as hard as I can into Kreshnik’s neck.
Blood sprays, warm and sticky. But I can’t tell where he’s been hit or how deep. The world is twisting and turning before my eyes.
Benjamin wails while Kreshnik yells a garbled mess of curses. He swipes at me. I feel a blow to my side and another to my chest, but I can’t worry about that now. Not when the lives of everyone I love lay in the balance.
“Bitch!” he growls. He ducks behind his arm and leans forward.
I’m not sure what he’s doing until I see the sharp point of a blade coming my way.
I scream and dodge to the side, swinging the rod at him as I fall back. I miss and the rod goes flying out of my hand from the force of my swing. It clatters against the cement as I fall flat onto my back.
I try to inhale, but the wind has been knocked out of me. All I can do is gasp for oxygen with failing lungs. Kreshnik stalks over me, a knife in his hand. He doesn’t say a word as he lifts the blade over his head, but he doesn’t need to. There is murder in his eyes and in the curl of his upper lip.
This is the end for me.
Then the shots ring out.
One, two, three.Bang, bang, bang.
