Chapter 32 RUIN ME
Panic seizes my chest as I drop Dalmat Hoxha. A single shot between the eyes ends his miserable existence.
My immediate impulse is to bolt after her.
Lana. She saw everything. Now she knows what kind of sick, twisted monster she married.
But I stop myself. My fingers grip the cold metal chair, knuckles white. Rage and bloodlust pulse through me like poison. Her terrified screams blow out my eardrums, detonating inside my skull.
Good. That’s what should happen. Because nothing good can come out of this “relationship.” That’s what I want to happen. Because she should hate me like I’m supposed to hate her.
Hate. Who am I deluding? That ship sailed long ago.
My shoulders lock, muscles trembling as I force out slow, even breaths. The scent of blood and rot clings to me, the weight of the gun still heavy in my hand.
I was already in a pissed-off mood when Ren hauled the elusive recordkeeper into St. Michael’s catacombs through the Lake Michigan tunnel. The motherfucker was on the run. According to Aleksei, he stole two million from the Berishas and had a ten million bounty on his head.
But what truly signed his death warrant was interrupting my twenty-eight minutes with Lana.
When she eyed me through the camera in defiance, like she knew I was watching, every cell in my body stood at attention.
Thoughts of the Berishas, The Association, revenge? Nowhere to be seen.
Then she dragged her teeth across her bottom lip, slow and deliberate, her large, doe-like eyes smoldering with heat, her skin flushed as she trailed a finger over her creamy cleavage.
My cock roared to full mast. I had half a mind to stalk out of the room and go to her.
To claim my wife in every way I’ve denied myself.
Then the damn bastard had to come and ruin it all.
But this is good. This is fine. Pain is focus. Pain is drive.
Desire? Only for the weak.
The words don’t stick.
“Ren!” I snarl, tossing the gun on the desk. The metal clangs loudly against steel.
The assassin materializes in the doorway instantly, his black mask revealing only his eyes.
“You couldn’t have stopped her?”
He twirls his gun in his hand and shrugs. “You said, ‘Don’t disturb me for anything.’ I can follow instructions.”
I reach him in a few strides and shove him against the wall. “You never follow instructions.”
“You’re mistaking me for Aleksei.” Ren doles out a lazy grin, but anger sharpens his eyes.
His leg snaps out, a center blow to my chest.
Air knocks out of my lungs.
Nostrils flaring, he pushes forward. He sounds out of breath. Too out of breath. “She deserves to know. You shouldn’t keep her in the dark.”
“Why the conscience?” I hiss, pulling him off me, and stalk away. “Remember the vow?”
“For the vow. No mercy. Our ruin for their fall,” he seethes, his voice rough and unused. Almost inhuman.
It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak in three years. Shock cuts through my fury.
My eyes flare as he bares his teeth and pulls off his mask. Brown eyes pin mine. The same madness that floods my veins burns in his eyes. Pockmarks disguised by tattoos go up to his right jaw and temple.
We’re the same. Both ruined, both damned. That’s why I’m closest to him.
“She never took the vow. She deserves more.” Ren jams the butt of his gun into my chest. I want to tell him to pull the trigger. Because I’m a sadist and a masochist all rolled into one.
I’m not even human anymore.
“The cat-and-mouse game you’re playing? You’re toying with her heart,” Ren spits. “Remember rule number three? No innocents. But I hate to break it to you. Lana? She’s innocent!”
I recoil, his words landing like bullets.
“So yeah,” Ren switches back to signing, grabs his mask from the floor and jams it back on, “I let her come in and see you in your full fucking glory. Who the Shadow King really is. You clean up your shit this time.”
With his face leached of color, he storms out, his boots echoing in the tunnel.
Silence falls. I sink into the chair, staring at the corpse sprawled across the floor, lying in a pool of his own blood.
I’m Elias Kent. Ruthless. Cold-blooded murderer.
I’m Elias fucking Kent, and I only exist for revenge and retribution.
My lighter slides out of my pocket. I click it open. The sound does nothing to soothe the pain carving up my chest, stabbing at the organ trying to resuscitate after twenty long years.
I don’t feel. I don’t love. I need to hate her.
I’m Elias—
Then I still.
My heart, that useless, traitorous beast, jolts to life.
My lungs seize. I pull in a breath.
Because I smell it.
Sweet roses that have no place in the stench of death and decay.
Soft footsteps. Careful. Graceful like fairies. Butterflies.
The air in the room shifts and vibrates into something wild. Something uncontainable.
“Elias,” she whispers.
My head lifts. She stands at the doorway, eyes bloodshot, thick brown hair tumbling over her shoulders, her sweater speckled with blood and tears.
She trembles like a flower, fragile but defiant against a hurricane.
She came back.
I’ve completely lost my mind.
That’s the only explanation for why I’m standing in front of a murderer, my husband, after bolting back to the library upstairs to claim my music box.
I meant to take the first flight back to New York; The Association be damned.
But when I picked up the wooden box and felt its weight in my hand, I couldn’t leave.
Not without answers about Kian.
And as proof of my descent into lunacy, I couldn’t leave him either.
I tell myself the man Elias killed was a bad guy. Part of The Association. But the brutal way Elias did it? The sadistic glint in his eyes when I caught him?
It terrified me.
A sane person would’ve run and kept running. So why am I still here?
Because underneath the savagery I just witnessed, past the blood and the violence, I saw something else.
Grief. Heartbreak. A man who lost too much and couldn’t find his way back.
So, against all common sense, with my pulse rioting, I descended the stairs again, music box clutched to my chest.
And when I saw him, broken and ravaged, my heart stopped trying to flee.
He was slumped in the chair, blood soaking his shirt, sweat slicking his hair.
Completely devastated.
“Elias.” My voice is barely a whisper, but his head snaps up.
He hitches a breath. Sharp, as if it hurts.
I move toward him, my steps careful. My body thrums with static, the zinging energy in the air moments before a tornado hits.
And yet, none of it is fear.
I should be terrified. He’s a monster. He’s dangerous and vicious.
But I’m not.
Slowly, Elias rises, uncoiling his powerful frame until he towers over me. He fills the room with his presence.
My skin prickles, my vision narrows as I arch my head back to look at him.
My husband.
“Why did you come back?” he rasps, hands fisted at his sides.
Anguish. I hear it in his voice, loud and clear. My heart shreds into pieces.
I slowly lift my hand and wipe the blood from his face. A tortured hiss escapes his lips. “What are you hiding, Elias? What are you planning?”
There has to be a reason for this bloodshed. Deep down, perhaps I’ve never really believed the man who’s been loyal to my family for the past decade could be that unhinged and brutal for no reason.
Maybe this entire time, I still hope for one impossible thing.
That somewhere inside the Shadow King has a soul worth saving.
“Tell me, Elias.” My gaze sweeps over the hard planes of his face, fingers trailing the raised scar that still looks painful.
The sight of the corpse’s legs behind the table makes me gasp.
He immediately moves closer, blocking my view.
“It’s none of your business, zemer.” His fingers tremble as he covers my hand with his blood-smeared one, pinning it to his cheek. “Don’t pretend you care.”
“Maybe you need someone to care about you,” I whisper, my heart resuming its chaotic rhythm.
Time splinters into fragments. Elias freezes, and I hold my breath.
I hear a faucet leak from somewhere in the distance. Drip. Drip. Drip.
His lashes lift, revealing deep emerald irises rimmed with molten gold flecks, sunlight trapped in an evergreen forest.
Eyes I’ve only seen long ago in another life.
A lever slides into position—the final click unlocking the invisible puzzle buried for all these years in the deepest recesses of my heart.
I lift the music box between us, my hand trembling. Elias’s eyes widen, his grip on my fingers tightening.
“How did you get this, Elias?” I whisper. “How did you know? Where’s Kian?”
Agony flashes in his eyes, and his throat ripples.
He doesn’t answer me.
“How, Elias? How?” My hand slides from his face to his shoulder. I shake him, desperation stabbing wounds into my chest. “Tell me.”
Another dead silence, thick and unrelenting.
A deep, tortured sound rumbles from his chest. A dark chuckle. A flash of teeth. His entire body shakes as if I’m the punchline to a joke I’m not privy to.
Then he stops. His nostrils flare.
He dips down, his lips inches from my ear.
“I think you know the answer, my zemer.” His breath brushes my face, and I shiver. “I guess puberty did find me after all…Elise.”
I flinch. Electrocuted. Death by surprise or terror.
Staggering back, I shake my head. Elias straightens slowly, his face lifting to the light, illuminating the strong, masculine jaw, the five o’clock shadow, and the rigid scar bisecting his cheek.
His eyes.
Those breathtaking green eyes. The ones that always seem like they can see through me.
No. It can’t be. How have I not noticed them until now?
Images of a beautiful boy flash behind my eyelids—his soft skin, even softer eyes, his dazzling smile, his gentle touch.
They morph into the man before me—all hard angles, tethered power, leashed control. He looks completely different, and yet, the echo’s there.
How could I’ve missed it? How did I not know the boy I never forgot was beside me all along?
“K-Kian?” I stumble toward him, driven by pure instinct. Moisture mists my eyes. “Kian? Wh-What happened to you? What’s going on?”
Click.
Gaze pinned on me, he flicks his lighter. But his usual grace isn’t there. His cheek twitches, chest rising and falling in a chaotic rhythm. The lighter clicks quicken.
Then he hurls it to the ground. The loud clang jolts me in place.
“Surprise,” he rasps. “Scared yet, Elise?”