Chapter 12 #2
He leans in so close that I can smell the bourbon on his breath as he chuckles in my face.
“Santino knew that he had fucked up the whole plan. And he knew that I knew because he had beat you black and blue, left you for dead, and split town—escaping to his little hideaway island before I could get my fucking hands on him.” He looks down over my shoulder, assumingly at Santino’s unconscious form.
“Little did he know that I had already formulated a new plan to make his little departure work to my advantage.”
His eyes rake over my body from bottom to top with a predatory hunger that has nausea swirling heavily in my gut. A malevolent smile takes over his twisted features before he leans in, the stubble of his cheek scratching against mine.
“Get the fuck away—” Click. The newly familiar sound of a hammer being pulled back sounds close to my ear and Adris’ argument dies on his lips.
Boris’ eyes never once stray from my face when he croons, “See, I’d planned on killing you myself once I discovered the truth, since apparently the only person I can count on to follow through on a plan here is me.
” His eyes flit to Adris and back. “Until you.” His grin broadens and I recoil.
“And now that I’ve had a good look at you, I have a much, much better idea. ”
Goosebumps prickle along my skin at his words and a sense of impending doom settles like a lead weight in my chest. He licks the shell of my ear and my body threatens to revolt against his sickening touch.
Adris undoubtedly sees what his father has just done, judging by the growl that rattles through his chest. Footsteps pound the ground right as I’m whipped back around and his father’s arm bands around my neck.
My hands fly up to grip his forearm in an attempt to loosen his hold, but this time the gun is trained on Adris, and my heart stops.
He stands stock still, completely unmoving, his expression dead and unreadable. Almost as if he’s bored and this entire exchange isn’t the manifestation of my worst nightmares.
Boris chuckles and the sound injects pure horror and dread directly into my veins.
My trembling causes him to tighten his grip on me and I whimper, my eyes stinging with the onslaught of unshed tears.
Adris’ eyes flicker to me for a fraction of a second before they lock on his father again.
“Obviously the plan went to shit when Ferrero decided to keep you as his little pet instead of putting a bullet between your pretty eyes, but your being alive actually works better to my advantage.”
“You’re talking in circles,” Adris points out, crossing his arms. “Care to get to the point?” My eyes track the move, because his seemingly disinterested posture would seem natural for his current persona, but I notice the way his middle finger repeatedly taps against the dagger strapped to his bicep.
It’s a gesture that would suggest that his patience is wearing thin—which it just may be—but he’s speaking to me without words.
You’re not defenseless, Wraith.
I can practically hear his silent message echoing in my mind as if he said it aloud.
I swallow thickly and jerk against his father’s hold, knowing I wont get anywhere, but I wanted to have a reason to remove my hands from his arm without drawing suspicion.
I’m not a trained killer, and I’m terrified I’ll fuck something up, but I have to try something.
I’m the furthest thing from being a heroine but I’ve never felt more fear than I have at seeing a gun trained on the man who owns me; body, heart, and soul.
Are these affections between me and the unhinged man before me toxic? Yes. But what other kind of love do I have to compare it to?
“My point, sSon, is that in your vigilante quest for revenge, you delivered her to me on a silver fucking platter.” He sniffs, adjusting his grip on his gun and I let my hands slip slower until they rest atop the OTF knives tucked into the belt around my waist. “I’m assuming you’ve fucked her already, no? ”
Adris doesn’t react to his father baiting him, but my breath hitches and my body stiffens against my will, immediately giving him the answer he needs. He chuckles again.
“You’re just like me, then.”
“In your dreams, you fucking cunt.” Adris scoffs, tapping two fingers now. “Both of us know that when it comes to who the better man is, you don’t have a gods-damned leg to stand on.” His eyes dart to me when he says “ leg ” and I understand what he wants me to do.
“You’re a cocky fucker. Ever since you decided to finally open that mouth of yours and talk.” His father tuts. “But let me clue you in since you seem to be missing the point.”
He shifts the gun until the barrel is pressed to my temple again and my hands freeze on the knives, my breaths pushing past my lips in short staccato bursts.
“She’s soiled goods now. Mikhail will never be able to marry her off to any man, knowing she won’t bleed for her husband that first time he fucks her on their wedding night.
But lucky for you, Odessa,” he croons against my ear, “I’m nothing if not a man of honor, and after mourning the loss of my darling wife for so long, I offer to marry you.
Then I’ll secure my place as Pakhan and you’ll go back to being what Santino and my son have bred you for. My little fuck doll?— ”
“Like fuck,” I grit, taking advantage of his head being so close to mine and rearing back, I head butt him so hard my skull starts to throb as Adris’ father howls in pain.
In that same moment, I pop each knife from my belt, flipping them around in my palm so they’re facing down.
While he’s distracted with holding his face, I swing both arms down, my thumbs deploying the button that releases the blade just before they each sink into each of his thighs.
A deafening roar fills the room but I barely register the sound over the pounding in my skull and blood whooshing in my ears.
Adris is quick to move, grabbing me and giving me a rapid once-over before shoving me behind him.
Santino is still unconscious on the floor behind us, and his father is now on his knees before us, groaning over the blades currently lodged in the thick flesh of his thighs, blood rapidly seeping through the fabric of his black slacks.
A sinister laugh bubbles up from the confines of Adris’ chest and the macabre sound does nothing to quell the pounding of my tired heart.
He shakes his head, looking at his father, who is still struggling on the ground.
“Bested by a Wraith,” he taunts, plucking a dagger from the strap around his upper arm. His arm whips out, the knife soaring it at his father, who ducks, but it still lodges deep in his shoulder. He throws another and it hits his father’s abdomen.
Boris wavers, swaying on his knees before coughing up blood and landing on his ass, a dazed look glazing over his eyes.
A tattooed hand wraps around my wrist, and suddenly I’m being pulled from the room faster than my feet can keep up with.
“We’re close!”
“Get to the closest exit point!”
Calix and Rune’s commands and panicked voices invade our ears and Adris presses his hand against his device. “Northern exit. Get Odessa out of here.”
His command is borderline manic as we rush down the stairs.
“Adris, your signal is weak. Repeat. Where the fuck are you?” Rune barks, but Adris isn’t listening to him.
I trip over a dead body and lose my grip on his hand, landing hard in a puddle of blood; pain radiates through my knees and palms.
“Adris!” I shout, panicked, trying to get his attention and turn my wild eyes to him, but he’s already lifting me in his arms and sprinting for the busted door we entered through.
Holding me closer to his chest, I can feel his heart beating wildly as we grow closer.
“Almost there, baby, hang on.”
We reach the entrance and it feels as if I may faint with the adrenaline pumping through my veins, hope flooding my chest because our freedom is just on the other side of this threshold.
Adris sets me back on my own two feet, and he’s gripping my shoulders, his unhinged, wild eyes boring into me, urging me to turn me around and run out the door and into safety.
I’m about to follow his silent command, but a deafening pop reverberates off the walls. Adris and I both flinch at the same moment that something wet explodes across my hands and face.
It’s sticky.
Warm.
Crimson.
Oh, God.
Blood.
Adris stares at me and for the first time, I can see the raw, genuine fear swallowing him whole as blood begins to bloom in the center of his chest before he collapses against me.
I go down with him, unable to hold his weight, and I’m screaming. I’m screaming, and crying, and begging as I press my hands to his chest, trying and failing to staunch the bleeding.
“ No, no, no, no, nonononono!” I press harder, ignoring the distant sound of staggering footsteps. “Adris!”
His breathing is erratic, coming in random puffs and spurts from his bloody mouth and nose. “Fuck! Hold on! Please ,” I beg, gathering the material of his shirt and holding it against the bullet wound that won’t. Stop. Bleeding.
He’s… Hhe’s dying.
Bleeding out before me and I’m fucking helpless to stop it.
I can barely see through my tears and an all-consuming pain shreds its way through my heart as Adris grows pale beneath me, beads of sweat dotting his brow, his dark hair plastered to his face.
This can’t be how we end. I’ve only just gotten him back.
His eyes start to roll back, and it has me leaning in close, screaming his name mere inches from his face. “You have to stay with me! You wouldn’t let me run, so neither can you, Adris Knox.”
The words barely register through the agony that has a chokehold on me. His body falls unnaturally still and his chest rises so painfully slow in an attempt to take another breath.
No.
No, no, no.
Another scream rips from my throat, tearing apart my vocal cords with the same intensity in which my heart is shredding in two.
On a hiccup, my eyes fall to the last arrow left from his quiver that had fallen from his back and without thought I reach for it.
I won’t live without him.
I can’t.
Turning the arrow around, I take aim just over the A carved within the scarring over the very heart that Adris stole so long ago. But before I can strike, a hand darts out, gripping my wrist hard enough for the bone to crack.
It’s Adris’ broken last words, gritted through bloody teeth that will forever haunt me down to my marrow.
“ Don’t. You. Fucking. Dare. ” His eyes can’t even focus on me, but I feel the intensity of his words nonetheless.
“Adris, don’t,” I beg, knowing that despite fighting him tooth and nail, I’d do anything he asked of me. “ Please .”
“Fight, Wraith. ”
“For what?” I ask him, but I’m not even sure he hears the words until a moment later when he sucks in a garbled, rattling breath.
“For life.” He coughs and more blood leaks from his mouth. “ Pomni, tvoe serdtse prinadlezhit mne .”
Remember, your heart is mine.
His form disappears behind my watery vision and through my uncontrollable sobs, I kiss his cold, unmoving lips just as his body falls completely slack.
I’m ripped away from him suddenly as I become airborne for a moment, but before I can fight to get back to Adris, the muzzle of a gun crashes down against my temple and my vision swims, the world around me being swallowed into oblivion.
I reach for him despite the growing distance between us.
I think I’m crying out his name, but the words sound so hazy and muffled that I can’t be sure.
Everything moves in a blur as I’m thrown haphazardly into the backseat of a vehicle before peeling out and speeding down a hill.
The device in my ear crackles one last time as I’m taken further and further away.
“We’re here! Adris? Oh, fuck! Odessa, where?—”
BOOM!
An explosion shakes the earth beneath the car, a fiery mushroom cloud rising from the place where Santino’s hideaway once stood.
I want to scream but my own body is shutting down. A final tear rolls down my cheek before giving in. The last thing I see in my mind’s eye before surrendering to the darkness is Adris’ pale, lifeless body as I’m carried away from where I left my heart.
And now they’re all gone.
Rune. Calix.
Adris.
It’s all because of me. The death-seeking wraith.