Chapter 51 Slava
SLAVA
I stand at the sink, hands braced against porcelain and head hanging between my shoulders while the shower runs in the background. The mirror is fogged over.
Good.
I don't want to see what's looking back.
If you ever betray me, malyshka, you'll wish you were still my enemy.
My knuckles tighten around the sink’s edge until they turn white. Those words had been so fucking easy to say. But it was a whole different thing to see them realized in the worst possible way.
And nothing could’ve prepared my heart for those three simple words that fell from her lips just a few moments ago.
I hate you.
Bella did her best to put the poison behind those three words, like she was trying to convince herself even as her body shattered around mine, and her fingers dug into my shoulders to leave her marks on me the same way my mouth left my marks on her.
I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
There was no mistaking the three words she meant.
And instead of giving her the truth of what her heart wants, I gave her the lie she craved.
My jaw clenches so hard that I can hear my teeth grinding in my skull. I think about all the ways I've been cut open over the years—bullets and knives and every kind of way pain can be inflicted—but nothing hurts like this.
None of them ever made me want to peel off my own skin and leave it on the bathroom floor.
I knew what we were both trying to do. Maybe I’ve always known, even when anger was the only thing clouding my vision after I discovered her betrayal.
Both of us wanted to push each other away, because both of us believed that if we were foolish enough to fall for each other, then we would be reckless enough to destroy each other because of that love.
I swore off love after Gia—closed my heart off and refused to let anyone in. But Bella found a way to peel back just enough of my armor and planted herself inside. And before I realized how she even did it, she’d taken root and no amount of digging could ever get her out.
And apparently, so had I.
Because that’s the real reason she wanted to push me away. She didn’t want her own past to repeat itself, just as I didn’t want mine to. She didn’t want me to suffer the consequences of loving me, and I didn’t want her to become a weapon my enemies can use.
And in our mutual cowardice, we settled on the easy option—to push each other away and make each other believe that we hated instead of loved.
But it didn’t fucking work.
We held each other and came apart together. Grief and relief and self-loathing all at once. I felt her tears hit my chest and I thought that if I can just keep going, then it’ll be enough to warn her to stay away from me.
I hate you. I hate you. I love you.
“Fuck!” I push off the sink, turn, slam my palm against the tile hard enough that pain blooms up my wrist.
I shouldn’t have walked away from her when she told me to leave. I should’ve swept her into my arms, kissed away her tears, apologized to her for what I’ve done, and told her the truth.
And now I'm standing in this steam-filled bathroom hating myself with the same ferocity I used to reserve for my enemies, because the act that was supposed to sever us fused us tighter in all the broken places.
I can't stop loving her even if I tried, even if I wanted to. And now I’m afraid that it’s too late.
I have to go back out, I think. I have to go to her and apologize.
If I apologize, maybe we can undo what we’ve just done. Maybe we can find our way back to that moment in the hunting lodge with the warmth of the fire on our skin and the sound of the storm outside.
I walk out of the bathroom, and cross the distance of my empty bedroom until my hand rests on the handle of the door.
But as I do, something cold slithers into my chest, and it tells me that I already know what I’ll find on the other end when I open it.
Silence. Emptiness. An absence so deep that you can feel it in your bones.
"Bella?"
My voice is quiet as it reverberates through the space. Nothing. I try again.
“Bella.”
Still nothing.
The stillness is maddening, and for a brief moment, my penthouse feels like a tomb.
I take a step forward. My mind is still convinced that if I just go to my office, I’ll find her there by my desk.
Maybe the hate has gone out of her eyes, and she’ll be willing to listen to me apologize.
Maybe I can still fix this. Maybe we can still fix this. Maybe it’s not too late.
That’s when my toes touch something small and light. I look down and that’s when hope finally dies.
There, sitting on the hardwood floor just outside of my bedroom door is the glue thumbprint.
My chest tightens.
She was here. She was right here. She stood right on the other side of that door, inches away from me while I was bent over my sink hating myself. She had slipped the thumbprint on, and maybe even reached out, thinking that she should open it.
But she fucking didn’t.
Can I blame her?
I kneel down and pick up the thin piece of glue with fingers that don't feel like they’re mine anymore. I swear I can still feel her warmth on it. For a moment, I consider crushing it and grinding it into nothing the way I've ground down every other soft thing that's threatened me.
But I don’t.
I can't. Because it’s hers, and it’s the last thing that I have that’s hers.
A single tear slides down my cheek before I can stop it.
Suddenly, my phone rings from the office, and hope seeps into my heart. With quick steps, I rush down the hallway and step into the room that still smells of sex and regret and hurt.
But when I pick up the phone and see the name on the screen, anger starts to drum in my chest, and I almost throw the phone against the window where Bella’s handprint still remains.
Nico D'Ambrosio.
I answer with violence in my voice, embracing the rage squeezing around my throat because anything is better than thinking about what I’ve lost.
"If you're calling to gloat—" I snarl.
"For once in your fucking life, Romanov, listen."
That stops me.
Nico's voice is wrong. It’s not the arrogant smooth tone that I’m so used to hearing from him. No, there’s a rushed edge to it. Ragged and urgent, like he’s scared and panicking.
"My father has Bella," he says without waiting for me to answer. "And her nephew Anthony too. He'll kill them both if we don't—"
"You really think I’m going to believe this obvious trap?”
"It's not a trap, you stubborn bastard, it's the truth!” Nico snaps. “He took them from her apartment maybe twenty minutes ago. I've been following his car, but I can't move on him alone, and if you don't get your ass out here—"
"Proof." My voice is colder than I feel. "Give me proof or stop wasting my time."
A sound of pure frustration, a muffled curse, and then the phone shifts as he passes it to someone else.
"Slava?" A woman’s voice asks.
"Who is this?"
"Lydia. I'm Bella’s friend, and I was there." She takes a sharp breath. "When Don Leo took her. Nico’s telling the truth. Don Leo…”
Her voice quivers, breaking.
“Don Leo said that he’s going to rape her before he kills her.”
My blood freezes into ice, and that word ricochets through my skull.
The phone shifts again, and Nico’s voice returns, steadier than before.
"I know you hate me, Romanov. I know you hate all D'Ambrosios except my sister.
" There’s a bitter and raw note to his voice now.
"But I swore a vow to Bella and told her I would save both our nephews—hers and mine.
She did her part to save Alessandro. Now help me hold up my end of the bargain to save Anthony. "
The floor spins beneath my feet. "What do you mean she did her part to save Alessandro?"
Nico laughs. "Did you seriously not think about why my father's men attacked that chateau after you brought my nephew back from France?"
What?
The record of the call Bella made through the satellite connection on the plane after we were safely in the air. The urgency with which she insisted that we take Alessandro with us. The timing of the attack happening only after we were both back in New York, and the sheer size of the attack itself.
Bella didn’t betray you, you fucking fool! She’d been trying to make up for accidentally revealing Alessandro’s name to the D’Ambrosios this whole fucking time.
If she told them the chateau location because Alessandro wasn't there anymore—
“I…” I start.
"Figured it out now, have you?" Nico's voice is quiet now. "She knew what my father was planning, and she made sure your son wasn't there when the hit came."
I never should have doubted her.
"I'm sending you my location," Nico says. "My father's car is right in front of mine. It’s another hour before he arrives home. And once he does, you’ll be too late."
"Nico—"
"Get going, Romanov,” he says. "Before you lose another woman you love because of him."
I'm moving before my brain catches up.
Clothes. I need clothes. I tear through my closet, grabbing the first things my hands find—dark pants, a shirt I don't bother to button, boots I shove my feet into without tying. My gun is in the bedroom safe, and I punch the code wrong twice before my fingers cooperate.
That monster has Bella.
He’s going to rape her.
He’s going to murder her.
I won’t let that happen. I can’t let that happen. I will tear him apart with my bare hands before I let that happen, break every bone in his body, and make him beg for a death that I won’t give him so I can draw out his suffering, nice and slow.
As soon as the elevator doors open, I step inside and hit the button for the parking garage.
Gravity shifts, and I urge the elevator to fall faster.
My reflection in the polished steel is wild as he looks back at me.
My shirt is unbuttoned, my shoes are unkempt and unpolished. The gun in my hand is shaking.
I look like a man who's on the verge of losing everything again.