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I spit blood and a broken tooth on the floor as Adrik retreats a step or two so he can laugh at my agony. “I’m better than you, Ruslan Oryolov. I’ve always been and I’ve gonna prove that right fucking now.”
He sends a brutal kick my way but I sidestep it and hurl a punch at his stomach. It’s not a perfect blow, but it’s enough to stagger him, and when he goes stumbling backward, his foot catches a loose floorboard and plants him on his ass.
“Keep talking, Makarov. You’re just digging yourself a deeper hole.” I tower over him, blood streaming down my chin and chest. “Let’s face it:thisis where you really belong. At my fucking feet.”
Adrik sneers up at me, a kernel of fear flashing across his eyes. “You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
He’s trying to sidle out from underneath my shadow but I raise my foot and pin it down on his chest. “You got something to say? Thensayit.”
He bares his teeth as I put more of my weight on his chest. “Your brother was alive after the car skidded into that lamppost. He was bleeding from the head but he was alive.”
My body goes cold. “How… how do you know that?”
“BecauseIwas driving the car that crashed into them.”
My head feels like it’s about to explode. My body is tingling with disbelief and rage. Adrenaline pumps through me, hot and venomous.
Adrik shoves himself upward, taking advantage of my shock. He knocks my leg off him and comes at me hard, with a dead man’s fury.
He was counting on my distraction—which he got. But in his desperation, he hadn’t accounted for my rage. It explodes out of me, catching him between its fangs. I slam my forehead into his face until his eyeballs roll back in his skull. He punches and swings elbows, and more than one of those strikes catches me, until my face is a waterfall of blood.
None of it matters.
I still pin him to the wall by his throat.
“Say it again, motherfucker,” I rasp. “Say that bullshit one more time and see what happens.”
But I can tell by the look in his eyes that it’s true. And maybe I knew it in my bones long before I knew it in my head. Ofcoursethis is how it happened. The sick threads of my life coming together in a vicious knot.
Vadim had taken care of everything after Mom and Leonid’s deaths. He must’ve known he would’ve been the one to do that, too.So he forced it to happen all by himself.He thought he could play puppet master and make my father and me dance to his tune. He sent his son out to kill my family—to kill me, too, if only I’d been in the car the way I was supposed to—and he thought he’d come along and scoop up the pieces for himself.
“You’re getting it, aren’t you?” Adrik laughs manically. “I can tell. I cansmellit on you. I killed your whore of a mother and your bastard of a brother. And you know what? I don’t regret it. I watched the car burst into flames and that was the moment when I realized what I was capable of.”
“Emma,” I growl, voice breaking with rage, “get the kids out of here.”
I hear the scurrying of feet as Emma herds them out of the room. The moment the door closes, I tighten my grip around Adrik’s neck.
“This will not end well for you, Adrik. I will—”
I stop short as pain erupts down my side. I glance down and realize that Adrik has stuck me with a knife he pulled out from fuck knows where. The strength evaporates from my grip immediately. He pushes me off him and lurches for his gun, which is lying only a few feet away where he dropped it.
Everything happens in reverse this time.I’mthe one tripping.I’mthe one falling on my back.Heis the one putting his foot on my chest and standing over me, ready to rain down death.
No!I want to bellow.This can’t be how it—
BANG!
The gunshot rings out. I wait for the pain, but it doesn’t come.
Then Adrik crumples to the floor.
I twist around and find a shaking Josh, holding a smoking gun.Mysmoking gun.
I reach up and snatch it from his hands. The stab wound screams with pain as it leaks too much blood, but if I hesitate now, I’m risking my life and more importantly, Josh’s. So I harness all my willpower and all my strength to turn a blind eye to the pain.
I stand and kick Adrik’s gun away from where he’s still reaching for it. Josh got him in the shoulder and he’s bleeding like a stuck pig, same as me. But when he sees he has no chance left, he stops and looks up at me.
“Put your gun down and fight me like a man,” he croaks.
