“Bring it here.”

A cold sweat flooded me, washing through me with shaky dampness. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. The battle within consumed every ounce of me, stealing the air from my lungs and suffocating me.

His gaze hardened. “I said, bring it here.”

This was easier when he was D’yavol and not the man who wiped away my tears. Just the thought burned the backs of my eyes because I knew, after this, he never would again. But I needed to do this now, before I fell so deep I couldn’t find a way out.

“I can’t.” The words leaked of despair.

He stood and stepped toward me, determination in his eyes. I raised the barrel to his chest. The gun was so heavy, my arms shook, the trigger burning my finger.

“Don’t. Please don’t.” My blood rushed so loudly in my ears it almost drowned out my voice.

Jaw tight, he paused.

“I can’t be the reason my papa dies. I can’t . . .” Tears ran down my cheeks. “Just let me go,” I pleaded. “That’s all I want.”

He made a dark, disbelieving sound. “You’re a better liar than I thought.”

“What?” My chest constricted.

“Was this your plan?” he growled. “Were you thinking about saving your goddamn father’s life while fucking me?”

I blanched. “No . . . I didn’t plan this, but even if I did, you have no right to turn this around on me.” I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t find any anger. I didn’t have any more emotion to give. “You lied to me. You used me from the beginning.”

“And I’d do it all again.” The statement was full of venom. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him so furious. It shook the beat of my heart and forced me back a step.

“Please. Just let me go.” It came out as a sob. “That’s all I want.”

“Nyet.”

He wasn’t calling my bluff, though he also wasn’t going to give in. It hurt me more than anything that he thought I could really shoot him. The idea almost made me drop the gun, but I couldn’t. I didn’t mean anything to him. I was a chess piece. And I couldn’t survive being played anymore.

“Please, Ronan—”

“Don’t say my fucking name.”

I flinched. “I won’t,” I promised. “You won’t even have to see me again. Just let me go.”

There was nothing but my tears and silence for a second—this massive void of silence that would devastate anything alive.

And then he called my bluff.

He moved toward me, closing the distance so quickly I jumped back a step, and that was when my clammy finger slipped on the trigger.

Click.

Both of our eyes fell to the pistol in my hands right before I dropped it. The click replayed in my mind on a reel, each time sending a colder wave through me than the last. My thoughts were so jumbled, my body so numb, I couldn’t feel anything but the words in my head.

I just pulled the trigger on him.

The gun wasn’t fully loaded.

I didn’t mean to do it.

Ronan laughed humorlessly. “Guess I got really narcissistic tonight.”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of his room and down the hall. In a stunned haze, I didn’t say a word—even as he yanked me down the stairs and out the front door. The icy chill in the night air wrapped around my bare skin and fought the emptiness inside. But I didn’t feel anything, not even the snow beneath my feet while he dragged me through the yard.

Ronan opened the outbuilding door and pushed me in. I only heard his movements as he padlocked the gate to Khaos’s kennel to keep me out of it and the last thing he said before he slammed the door shut behind him.

“Sleep tight, kotyonok.”

noceur

(n.) one who stays up late

I was still in my briefs, my hands trembling as I poured some vodka into a tumbler. The outbuilding where Mila was locked up pulled at every muscle in my body like a magnet. She’d been out there for less than ten minutes, and each tick of the clock tightened an invisible noose around my neck. I couldn’t shake the feeling. I’d only distracted myself by turning on all the lights in the house and barking orders at Yulia. I wanted a cup of tea. My suit needed ironing. And why the fuck was there so much yellow in my house?

“She will die out there.”

I didn’t even hear Albert enter the room until he spoke. This was how men got killed in my position, but I didn’t give a shit right now. If the cold feeling spreading in my chest was anything to go by, I was already six feet under.

“Get out,” I ordered.

“It’s below zero. She could get hypothermia in minutes.”

The words ate at my veins, but I told myself it didn’t matter to me. Mila had played me. She got under my skin, made me do shit I never did, and then she stabbed me in the goddamn back. Lashing out, I wiped everything off the bar. Glass shattered, and I saw blood dripping from my hand but didn’t feel a thing.

I turned to Albert and growled, “I told you to get the fuck out.”

“How do you think we’re going to get our revenge if she dies out there?”

“I don’t give a fuck about revenge,” I seethed before realizing what I was saying.

Albert watched me for a second. “The men think Alexei is worming his way back into the city. You might lose some of them if you don’t follow through with it.”

The last thing I wanted was another war, but it would be inevitable if I didn’t cut the head off the snake. Most of my men were Alexei’s a few years ago. I’d like to think they were loyal to me, but nobody knew with fucking criminals.

I couldn’t focus on it right now. I didn’t know how I was supposed to sleep while Mila was locked in with the dogs in subzero temps. I shouldn’t care. I didn’t care. Pushing a hand through my hair, I paced the room.

“What did she do?”

“She shot me,” I said coldly.

He took me in with a flat expression. “You look unscathed.”

“Dry fire. The chamber wasn’t loaded.” I always kept my guns loaded. Always. It was a fucking miracle, honestly. Fate or some shit.

“You’re holding her as ransom for her papa’s head. Did you think she was going to thank you?”

I didn’t know what I thought. Earlier tonight, I felt sick to my stomach when I had a barrel pressed to her head, and it had been an accident. The fact she could do the same and say I never had to see her again . . . I’d never felt so betrayed in my life. I wasn’t thinking when I dragged her out to the kennel, and now everything was sinking in, regret pounded at the walls of my chest.

A part of me knew she didn’t mean to shoot me. But the part that consumed me was the fact she thought she could just walk away from me. As the anger died, it left me feeling hollow. Fucking awful. The thought of her out there, cold . . . I couldn’t take it anymore.

Brushing Albert’s shoulder, I strode from the room and out the front door, an uneasy feeling ablaze in my stomach. My men smoked cigarettes and went silent, watching me in curiosity as I made my way to the kennel barefoot and dressed in only my briefs. The fact I couldn’t leave her out here for more than fifteen minutes was sure to give them something to talk about. They could go fuck themselves for all I cared.