Chapter 57 Petyr
PETYR
“Get the fuck away from my brother!”
I lunge like a wild animal, my eyes locked on the mudak in scrubs and the syringe jerking in his grip. I slam him into the wall, hard. He thrashes, elbowing, trying to claw his way away from me.
Like fuck am I gonna let him.
We start grappling. He tries to jab the syringe at me, but I dodge it by a hair. I have no idea what’s in that thing, and I don’t fucking want to find out.
If he was trying to slip it to Dimitri, it can’t be anything good.
I throw him off. His back slams against the bedrail. The IV line rattles with the impact. As soon as he gathers himself, he stabs at me again. Again, I dodge.
The needle comes within an inch of my neck before I pin his wrist against the wall hard enough that it rattles free. It bounces once and clatters across the tile.
Then I grab his fingers and twist until he screams.
“Had enough yet?” I growl and twist harder.
His arm makes a sickening crack that echoes off the walls.
“Had enough, you fucking coward?!”
I drive my knee into his stomach and knock the air out of him. Then I grind his face into the wall until his nose makes the same sound his arm did.
He gurgles and sags, leaving behind a smear of blood, but I keep him skewered against the wall until the door bursts open.
The sound of boots and rushed voices fills the corridor before the door bursts open.
The two men I stationed outside shove inside, weapons drawn, eyes scanning. Kira is right behind them, her face pale and startled.
“What’s going on?” she blurts, eyes wide as she takes in the scene in front of her. “Petyr…?”
I don’t waste time with explanations.
My fist knots in the back of the intruder’s scrubs. I haul him to his feet like he weighs nothing. His legs wobble, but I shove him forward. “What’s going on is we have a fucking rat.”
My men catch him. One grips his shoulder; the other twists his arm behind his back.
I’m boiling over with fury. I’ve been angry plenty since the beginning of my reign, but never like this. Never like I could kill with looks alone.
He tried to hurt my brother.
He tried to murder him.
He’s gonna fucking pay.
I step in close, slam a fist into his gut, then cuff him across the jaw. His head jerks to the side.
“What were you doing here?” I snarl. “Who fucking sent you?!”
He wheezes and shakes his head. I grab a fistful of his scrubs and shove him against the wall again.
“Answer me, or I’ll carve it out of you right now.”
His only response is a strangled cough. Blood trickles from his split lip and ruined nose. He keeps his eyes averted, jaw locked, and refuses to speak.
My patience frays to nothing. My teeth grind.
Enough of this.
“Take him to the warehouse,” I bark. “I’ll get answers out of him myself.”
The men nod and drag the intruder out by the armpits. He whimpers, stumbles over his own feet, but they don’t slow.
The sound of their boots fades down the hall. When they’re gone, Kira presses a hand to her chest, her eyes wide on me. “Petyr, what—”
“Not now.” My tone leaves no room for argument. I’m still staring at the spot where the syringe hit the ground, the tiny glint of metal in the fluorescent light. My jaw is tight enough to ache.
This was no random act. He was sent. And if I had to bet, I’d put everything on the Danilos.
My blood burns at the thought. The Danilos already took my father from me. They tried taking Dimitri twice now.
But I’ll get the truth out of that assassin. One way or another.
Kira sinks into the nearest chair, shaky, her face ashen. “He could have killed Dimitri,” she whispers weakly..
She’s right. My brother was seconds away from death. I should feel relief that he’s alright, but all I feel is the sting of failure that I let it come this close.
I’m supposed to be the one who keeps him safe. And tonight, I nearly lost him again.
“How did he even get this far past your men?” Kira asks, baffled. “It’s like he knew exactly where to go. And why now, after all these weeks? Why suddenly tonight?”
I stay silent, but the seed of doubt takes root, refuses to be shaken off.
The same seed must be growing in Kira’s head, because she looks up at me abruptly. “The only difference is that you brought Sima here,” she says, eyes narrowed. “You never did before.”
“Be careful with your words, Kira.” I crack my knuckles. “Don’t talk about my wife like she’s some kind of traitor.”
She rises shakily from the chair but doesn’t back down, chin high. “I’m only saying what anyone would see. You bring her here, and suddenly this happens. You can’t ignore that.”
“Kira—”
“That’s my husband in that bed!” Her eyes fill with tears as she points at the husk that’s left of Dimitri. “My husband! And you’re telling me to lay off your child bride when she might be the culprit behind it?!”
I step toward her, fists clenched at my sides. “I don’t like your tone.”
“And I don’t like how blind you’re being,” she spits back, fear and defiance mixed in her eyes. “That’s your brother, too. You’re really going to ignore the signs of your wife’s guilt? Is that how little he matters to you?”
“You don’t fucking know how much he matters to me.”
“Then show me,” she demands. “Where’s Sima right now?”
In class, I want to answer, but I realize that I don’t know that. Not for certain. I’ve only got Luka’s word to take for it, and I already have enough reason to suspect that someone in my ranks cannot be trusted. As far as I’m concerned, that might be him.
The more I try to shove Kira’s insinuation away, the more my doubt spreads.
Fuck me—what if she’s right?
What if someone inside my circle is feeding information? And what if that someone is the very woman I’ve let into my life? Into my bed?
I feel it again, the same creeping sensation I felt that night at Boris’s restaurant: the chill of not knowing who I can trust.
Since the day I married Sima, too many things have gone wrong. The missing shipment. The shooting. And now, this attack on my brother. All of it after she entered my life.
Could Kira be onto something? Has Sima been feeding information to her family all along?
She never tried to run again after that first night. I thought that meant she understood, that she was willing to play along, but maybe that wasn’t it.
Maybe it wasn’t because of our deal. Maybe she chose to stay so she could get close enough to bleed me from the inside out.
And when she said she didn’t want what we had to end—
What if that was part of a plan, too?
I need to be sure. Is the woman in my bed my salvation or the one holding the knife to my throat?
There’s only one way to find out.