AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I told you, Lia. The punishment of betrayal is death.”
“No…no…” I grab his hand in a helpless attempt to stop him. The thought of where he’s going and the fate that awaits him cause me to gasp and blubber at the same time, “Don’t go to Sergei.”
“If I don’t, he’ll come here.”
“Then…then let me talk to him, let me tell him about Richard and—”
“That will get you killed.”
“But—”
“No. It’s final.”
“Adrian, please.” I dig my fingers into his arm.
He kisses the top of my head and removes my hand from around him, then heads to the car without a look back.
At first, I’m frozen in place, hot tears tingling on my cheeks. It isn’t until he’s driving away that I snap out of it.
The knowledge that he’s going to his death burns me like a thousand flames in the midst of the freezing cold.
“Adrian!” I shriek, running after him. “Adrian, no! Don’t leave me…don’t!”
My foot gets stuck in the snow and I stumble, but I continue hobbling after the car as it slowly disappears. “No, no…”
Loud, haunted sobs echo in the air and I realize they’re mine when my lungs burn with the need to catch up to him, to prevent him from walking to his own death.
“Adrian! Adrian!!” I scream at the top of my lungs. My feet give out and I fall to my knees in the middle of the snow.
I get up again, my chest quaking with the force of my cries and shrieks as I run after the car.
Strong arms grab me, preventing me from going any farther. I think I hear Yan’s and Boris’s voices, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.
All I’m focused on is the dot of black that’s slowly vanishing into the white.
And with it, my life vanishes, too.
22
Adrian
Aweight has been pressing on my chest since I left Russia.
Or more accurately, since I left Lia.
The view of her running after me, crying and screaming in the middle of the freezing snow, still plays at the back of my head on repeat.
I run a hand over my face to dispel those images. If I think of her, I won’t be able to get on with my plan.
I won’t be able to save her and our son.
While finding out she’s been meeting with Luca behind my back was like being stabbed with a thousand blunt knives, I believed every word she said.
If it were the old me, I wouldn’t have. If anything, my trust issues would have gotten the better of me and I would’ve taken it out on her. But that’s not the case now. Not only do I trust her, but everything she said made sense, filling in the missing puzzle pieces.
After the assassination attempt, her mental health took a sharp decline and her descent to rock bottom was fast. At the time, I thought it was due to witnessing the assassination attempt since she was always stressed about that side of my life. However, knowing that she killed someone with her own hands explains how she often went into a trance.
And she did it for me.
