Chapter 30 #2
“You’re still mine too,” I promise him even though I’m not sure if I can ever forgive him when it was his finger that pulled the trigger.
After all we’ve been through, all I’ve been through to try and save Archer, even though it was on Gavriil’s orders, it was still Dominik who took him from me.
He didn’t have to kill him. He could’ve let me go with Archer.
“You both seem to think I’m only taking Alina,” Gavriil observes. “I’m so sorry to disappoint you. Take him and his men as well,” Gavriil orders.
As if summoned, a dozen more men fill the garage, doubling the force. They’re not there to kill Dominik and his crew. They’re taking them!
“We had a deal!” I turn around and scream in his face.
“Yes,” Gavriil says, his face blank. “Not to kill or hurt them. Imprisonment is neither of those things, is it?”
Shackles clatter somewhere behind me. Dominik grunts in pain as someone forces his hands behind his back.
Gavriil studies me silent. Then calls someone over. “Hands out,” he instructs me. “Gentle. Keep them loose,” Gavriil tells his man. “Her cuffs are for my kink, not for confinement.”
I don’t offer up my wrists out of spite. A guard still grabs them and puts handcuffs around them, cool and heavier than the zip ties with a short chain between.
My stomach twists. The guard didn’t so much as bruise me. The lack of pain is somehow worse.
“Take them out, then her,” Gavriil instructs.
“Alina!” Dominik’s voice holds a tremor in it. I realize in that moment that he was the one who called my name from the SUV the night I was taken. It was his voice who called out to me before I ran. “Don’t let him break the part of you that’s mine.”
I can’t look at him.
Because if I look, I’ll try to run again. And running is pointless now.
“Come, Alina,” Gavriil says—my name now claimed. No formality. No distance. Just ownership.
The men move in. Two fingers land above my elbow, polite but insistent. I step forward before they can push me.
A few moments later, I slide into a new vehicle smelling of leather and smoke.
Another door opens. The air chills as Gavriil slides in beside me.
“Drive,” he orders.
We move. Or the world moves around us for some length of time that passes while I stare out the window.
“You’re quiet,” he eventually observes. “My brother likes your voice. Perhaps I will too.”
“I don’t talk to men who shoot my family in the back,” I reply flatly as more tears leak free.
“Ah.” He sounds almost approving. “But it wasn’t me who shot Archer, was it?” I wince at his name furious with myself for showing Gavriil any emotional reaction.
I face the asshole to tell him with full confidence. “Dom will take your throat out the first chance he gets.”
Gavriil smiles. Barely. “He can try.”
Silence. Lights strobe outside as we move under the river.
“You think he’ll still love you when he sees you standing unbound and realizes the chains I use on you are the kind he can’t unlock?”
“You won’t win anything with this bullshit move,” I whisper.
“Oh, I already did,” he replies.
The car goes still around us.
He leans in slightly, voice dropping. “When he sees my marks on you, he’ll hate himself, then he’ll hate you. And you already hate him for killing your brother.”
“You’re wrong. Dom will only hate you.”
Gavriil’s smile is quiet and lethal. “We’ll see.”
And then—the worst thought I’ve had all night hits me:
Dominik will blame himself forever.
Even if I could forgive him, he won’t forgive himself. There will always be a chasm between us, one that can’t be closed again.
“You can lie to yourself if it helps,” Gavriil murmurs. “I’m sure you’ll do plenty of that when I’m inside you.”
I shut my eyes. Only for a heartbeat. Only until breathing feels possible again.
“One month,” I remind myself. “One month, and I will never have to see your fucking face again.”
“One month,” Gavriil echoes. “And we’ll see what’s left of you.”
I stare forward, refusing to flinch again.
Dominik, please survive this. You have to.
Because I know him.
And if his guilt isn’t enough to hurt him, my time with Gavriil will destroy him.
My next exhale borders on shaky. Gavriil can try to unravel me all he wants, but I sure as hell won’t make it easy for him.
“How many times did you fuck my brother?” he asks, the vulgar word sounding odd in the aftermath of everything. When I don’t answer, he prompts me again. “Well?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Then I shall leave my brother’s wound bleeding until he tells me. Or I could have the doctor come restitch them tonight...”
God, he’s such a manipulative asshole.
“We didn’t…we never…”
He blinks silently as if in shock either from my outburst or my words. “Really? Not once?”
“No. He was recovering…”
Gavriil nods to himself. “So, I will be the first to have you.”
“You won’t be the first,” I grit out, refusing to let him think he’ll be able to take that from me.
“The first between my brother and I. Dominik will hate that so much.” He pauses, stares at me. “If you’re telling me the truth.”
“Why would I lie?” I scoff. “And if I got to choose between you and him, it would always be him.”
Gavriil reaches over and grabs the chain between my wrists. The cuffs bite into my wrists as he yanks me toward him so that I’m half lying on the seat, my face nearly in his lap. Asshole.
When I glare up at his face, he says, “It will never be him.”
To be continued...