“Go on then,” Viktor urges softly. “Do not be shy.”
Annika’s eyes flutter shut—there, just briefly, a glimpse of something other than numbness. Fear? Disgust? Anger? Then her eyes open, and as quick as it came, that glimpse is gone. She crosses the cold cement floor until she stands before me, pistol still in her hand. Though her back is to her father and his men, her stone-cold expression doesn’t waver. Not even for an instant.
Then slowly, she kneels before me. “Maxim,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.” Tears well in her eyes—real or fake?—and she touches a cool hand to my cheek. “I really do love you. I didn’t mean to. But…”
“Tell him what a man he is,” her father orders, a cruel grin splitting his face. “Tell him how he made you feel free.”
I flinch, eyes closed, lips pressed together.This is all a game. And she’s playing.I force myself to open my eyes, to meet hers, to steel my spine and feel nothing as Viktor Desyatov pulls her strings.
“I’ve never been with someone like you,” she whispers, thumb stroking my cheekbone. I want to jerk away from her cruel, manipulative touch. I want to curse at her. To shoot Viktor and every other bastard here. But I can’t. All I can do is sit there and watch, as the girl I thought loved me plays me as she has since the beginning. “You’re so powerful. So strong. But beneath that…there is real kindness. You made me feel safe. Understood. Seen.” A tear trails down Annika’s cheek.
Fake, I remind myself.She’s faking. She’s playing. She’s acting. It’s all a lie.
But, God—it seems impossibly real. “Enough,” I say, voice breaking. “Just kill me.”
A furrow appears between her brows. “Maxim…”
“Don’t,” I growl. “Don’t say my name.” Behind her, Viktor and his men laugh. Even the woman smiles sharply, amused.
Annika stares into my eyes. I stare into hers.
“Say it,” I order her, softly. “Tell me it was all a lie.”
Her cold mask, suddenly, fully—slips. Anger fills those familiar eyes, curls those beautiful lips. “It was all a lie.”
“Tell me you never loved me,” I say, because before I die, I want to hear her say it. I want the truth to be the last thing I hear. I want her to admit that she was my downfall. “Say it, Annika. Tell me the truth.”
Annika’s fingers trace over my lips. “It doesn’t matter, in the end,” she says. And she looks into my eyes, her own unblinking, the line between truth and lie suddenly so, so, undeniably clear. “We’re no one.”
The world falls away. The pain searing through my body fades. I don’t hear Viktor’s laughter. I don’t feel the Siberian wind on my skin. I don’t feel death close, or Annika’s betrayal, or guilt for the men who will soon die.
Tell me the truth.
There is nothing but Annika. The memory of those words, her lips against my ear three years ago, on the night we met, on the night we were strangers, on the night we, unbeknownst to us, set out on this journey that would define both of our lives.It doesn’t matter. Tonight, we’re no one.
Her eyes pierce mine. And finally, in hers, I see nothing but truth. Her allegiance. Her passion. Her ferocity.
Her love.
I love you,I think to her.I knew I loved you.I want to say it, because I know that, in all likelihood, I am about die. But I don’t. Instead, I trust that she reads it in my eyes.
“We are no one,” I repeat to her.
And with a grim nod, Annika Desyatova, the Daughter of the Snake rises, turns—and shoots her father in the heart.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Annika
He sees me.
He loves me.
We are not no one.
This is what I think as I level my pistol, cock, and fire.
That is enough.
