Chapter 30
Alina
I’m a horrible person for caving, for accepting Gavriil’s offer.
But Dominik has already taken a bullet for me. I won’t let him take another. And I have to give Archer one more chance because he’s the only family I have left in this world.
I’m so damn tired of having ticking clocks hanging over my head, of fighting a losing battle. I don’t want to do it anymore.
Gavriil isn’t going to give up. He’s made that clear since he learned I was Archer’s sister and Dominik refused to hand me over. I think that only made him want me more.
Well, I plan to make him regret getting what he wished for.
He’s watching me now, so smug in his immaculate suit, like he’s won something.
But he didn’t win.
I’m making my own damn choice.
“Miss Kent,” he says, like my name is sour on his tongue. I hate him more for how his voice makes me stand straighter. “Do we have a deal or not?”
“Don’t do this, Gavriil!” Dominik pleads. It’s a waste of breath.
“You let the traitor go. You refused my explicit orders. You thought you could take her and run from me. That’s a lot of regrettable choices for one day, little brother.” Something bright and cruel sparks in his stare. “Now I’m taking what’s always belonged to me.”
“Nothing in this fucking building belongs to you!” Dominik roars. The word nothing lands so heavily the whole city trembles. “Especially not her.”
Gavriil lifts a single dark eyebrow. “She just agreed to belong to me for a month.”
“No.”
“Neither she nor I were asking your permission,” Gavriil replies.
Dominik absorbs that—not with a flinch, but like the weight hits him full force, causing him to stagger back a step, pulling me by my hand with him.
While the brothers are having their showdown, mine is quietly, slowly, slinking toward the shittiest car in the lot, taking advantage of the distraction.
“The answer is still no. I won’t let you take her,” Dominik declares.
Gavriil sighs as if he’s genuinely regretful. Then he crooks two fingers toward me. “Come, Alina.”
I stand up on my tiptoes to give Dominik one final kiss on his cheek before I pull my hand from his and walk away from him. I make it two steps before Dominik tries to follow.
His men and Gavriil’s all move at once. Gavriil watches the clash without pride, just calculation. It makes me understand exactly how deep the difference runs between the two brothers.
Dominik is beautiful when he’s violent, but when he widens his stance to block a blow, his breath hitches as if his stitches are screaming at him.
I want to touch him. To help him.
But I can’t.
Three men surround him. He hits the ground, hard. I loathe that there are hands on him that aren’t mine. My mouth fills with the taste of panic.
“Stop it!” I grit out. “Make them stop, Gavriil! It’s over!”
“Enough,” Gavriil says, irritatingly calm. Everyone freezes except for Dominik who still tries to throw off the men flattening him to the pavement.
“Alina,” Dominik rasps. My name sounds like gravel. “Don’t go anywhere with him. Please. I love you. I’d rather be dead than watch you leave with him!”
His words hit me so hard I sway.
But I don’t break.
“Now you understand why I have to go.” My heart aches so sharply I can barely breathe. “I am choosing you. I just have to do this, to keep you and Archer both alive.”
His eyes close once, like that truth lances him open. I turn my back on him and finally walk the rest of the way to Gavriil.
“It’s sweet,” Gavriil says with contempt. “I almost remember what it was to be sentimental.”
When I reach his side, Gavriil grabs my arm, jerking me in front of his body.
His arm bands across my chest and arms, pining me against the front of his body, his expensive cologne suddenly overwhelming me.
It’s almost like I’m being wrapped up in a warm hug, before I feel the unmistakable pressure of his gun muzzle kissing my temple.
Dominik looks up from the ground and freezes. “What are you doing?”
“Bring me the traitor,” Gavriil commands.
I expect his men to lift Dominik off the ground.
They sprint after Archer instead.
My brother tries to jump into the vehicle’s driver seat and crank the engine, but Gavriil’s men are faster. They open the doors on either side, so he’s trapped, then one yanks him out of the car by his arm and drags him all the way across the floor to us while he curses and fights.
“The rat really thought he could get away so easily,” Gavriil remarks from behind me, his gun hand steady.
“Let him go, Gavriil. We had a deal,” I say, as if I hold any power at the moment.
He hums and says, “I agreed that I wouldn’t kill or hurt Archer. However, Dominik did not.”
What? What is he talking about?
“No!” Dominik shouts from the ground as the men let him rise to his knees. “I won’t do it!”
“You will, little brother. Because I’m giving you one last chance to do as you’re told. If you refuse my orders again, I’ll kill her and him both right now.”
Oh, wow. That shady son of a motherfucking bitch.
“Fuck you! Fuck you all to hell!” Archer shouts as he twists in the guard’s hold, knowing he’s doomed himself for the very last time.
“You wouldn’t…you wouldn’t hurt her,” Dominik mutters as he looks from my face to his brother’s.
But we both know he would. Gavriil wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep with my blood on his hands. He would kill me just to punish Dominik, to teach him a lesson.
“My men killing him teaches you nothing,” Gavriil says. “But you killing him teaches you everything. Obedience. Loyalty. Where your priorities truly lie. This lesson must come from your hand, not mine, little brother.”
“Please don’t do this,” I beg, the words soft enough that only Gavriil hears them because he’s the only one who can stop what’s about to happen. What has my heart thumping in my chest so hard I can barely hear over my own terrified pulse.
“Alina…” Dominik starts, and I already know what he’s going to say.
“Please, Gavriil. Stop this!” I exclaim again. “What do you want? A month? A year? Ten? Tell me!” I beg.
“A month with you is all I will ever want or need,” he replies coolly, rejecting and belittling me all at the same time.
I consider slamming my foot into his knee or stomping on his toe but inflicting pain on him would only make the asshole happy.
“Alina, dikaya koshka, I’m so fucking sorry,” Dominik says as he gets to his feet and staggers toward my brother.
“Don’t! You don’t have to do this, Morozov!” Archer shouts from his knees. “He’s lying. He won’t kill Alina. He’s fucking obsessed with her!”
My brother’s final words are trying to delay his death a little longer, to take me with him. He’s scared and desperate, and I don’t even blame him.
My mind races, searching for a way out of this, even though I know we’ve run out of options. There are no more clocks left ticking.
This is it.
Time is up.
Unable to look at Dominik or to hear another word of Archer’s pleas, I do the only thing I can, I close my eyes and slap my hands over my ears. I refuse to watch the scene play out in front of me.
Even with my ears covered, I hear Dominik cock his gun and Archer’s sobs, right before the single shot is fired, his last words cutting off abruptly.
Behind me, I can feel Gavriil’s smugness that he got what he wanted.
Bastard. He’s a fucking bastard.
I hate him so much right now that it physically hurts every inch of my entire body.
Archer is gone.
And it’s Dominik’s fault.
Gavriil’s fault.
My brother is dead, and it’s all my fault for betraying Dominik. I thought Gavriil was my only option. I was stupid enough to think that the mobster would keep his word.
I don’t deserve to run away with Dominik now. To have a happily ever after. I don’t deserve peace, not when Archer is lying so close and yet impossibly far away.
I lower my hands and open my eyes to finally face the new reality in front of me.
Dominik drops his gun, letting it fall with a heavy thud right next to where my brother lies unmoving.
“I did this. Blame me. Put all the blame on me, dikaya koshka,” Dominik says, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
For a split-second, I try to put myself in his shoes. I’m grateful Gavriil didn’t make me choose between Dominik or my brother. That’s all I have to be thankful for at the moment as I stare at Archer’s still body. Tears well up in my eyes and race each other down my cheeks.
“Alina,” Dominik says—begs, wanting me to look at him. I know the exact moment Dominik dies inside, because I feel it too. He says my name again and again like a prayer, a promise, a wound. It’s a sound that will haunt every nightmare I have for the rest of my life.
“Kneel, Dominik,” Gavriil orders. “You’ve already made an ugly mess of your stitches.”
God, his stitches. He’s tearing himself open for me again.
Dominik drops to his knees as if the weight of the world pushed him down.
“If you hurt him or his men, our deal is over,” I say through gritted teeth, glad I’m not facing Gavriil, that he can’t see the tears running down my face.
Gavriil lowers his arm from my chest and the gun. “I keep my word.”
“Let me say goodbye,” I whisper.
Gavriil sounds amused when he replies, “I’ll give you two sentences.”
I take a half step toward Dominik, but that’s as close as I can make my feet go. I can’t meet his eyes, so I look at the blood staining his side.
“I don’t blame you. Just like I know you won’t blame me for making this decision to try and protect you,” I tell him, voice steady by sheer force. I shouldn’t use a third sentence, but I do. “Don’t come for me before the month is over.”
Dominik’s mouth tilts with something that hurts to look at—a ghost of a smile. “Hellcat, I can’t...”
I shake my head and swallow a sob. “Don’t.”
“You’re still mine,” he says—raw, reverent, wrecked. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Those four words shatter me.