Not him. Not the gun. Not the blood soaking the grass.
What scares me is the part of me that feels avenged. The part that whispers he was right to do it. Because if this doesn’t repulse me, if this feels like justice, then maybe the monster isn’t just standing in front of me.
Maybe she’s already inside.
ALEKSEI
She hasn’t quite grasped the depth of my depravity. Not until now.
She looks at me like I’m something out of a nightmare. And she’s not wrong. I am.
Only she still doesn’t see the full picture. She doesn’t understand that when I destroy a man for touching her, it’s not just brutality. It is sending a message the world won’t forget.
Cross this line, and you don’t crawl back.
And today, she learned that lesson firsthand.
Aleksei Marinov doesn’t forgive. Doesn’t forget. Never lets anything go.
I saw the horror in her eyes as I carved screams out of him. I saw the way her throat worked like she couldn’t swallow, the way her fingers trembled as she tried not to break in front of me.
But under all that fear, there was something else. It flickered in her pupils, in the way she couldn’t look away, in the breath that hitched not just with disgust, but with a raw, ugly want she’ll never admit out loud.
She liked it.
That alone should make me stop and push her away. But all it does is feed the psychosis she’s injected me with.
I run a hand down her back as she lowers herself back to the bench, no longer appearing sick. When I saw her that way, I almost regretted the whole thing. I should have let her rest longer before I ended him. She’s still carrying the residue of what that bastard pumped into her veins.
And yet I almost wish he was still alive. Just so I could take my time and really make him understand what happens when someone touches what’s mine.
One of my men steps forward, offering a damp washcloth, and I drag it across my hands. The blood smears before it fades, then I toss the ruined cloth on the grass.
She looks up at me, and the vulnerability there, the way her hands knot together on her lap, nails digging into her palms… She doesn’t know whether to run or thank me, and I can taste the war inside her.
I crouch in front of her, letting my knuckles brush along her jaw, soft enough to be mistaken for tenderness. “Are you feeling better?”
She nods, her chest swelling up and down, and my eyes can’t help but track the movement. I can’t stop the way my body reacts to being this close to hers.
“Come.” I take her hand, easing her to her feet.
She’s barely upright before my arm slips under her legs and I lift her against me. Her brows arch, lips parting like she wants to argue and tell me to put her down, but no words come out. Instead, she lays her head against my chest like she belongs there.
And that’s the problem. Because the second she rests against me, that vicious instinct flares. To hold her tighter. Shield her from the world I just blew up.
It makes no sense to have this urge to soothe her when I’ve spent so long creating chaos in her life. But when I saw the way she reacted to what I was about to do to him, I couldn’t do it. It was like something cracked in me.
I tell myself it’s not kindness or concern. It’s about being the one who can help her. That power.
But the lie sits heavy. Because the truth is uglier.
I just wanted to help her. It always seems to come back to that.
My father would be ashamed. He raised us to be strong, ruthless, untouched by weak emotions. And Fiona is the one thing that shatters every lesson he ever drilled into me, the kind of temptation that makes me forget the man I was meant to be.
But none of that matters. This marriage is nothing more than payback. A reminder that I hold her future in my fist and I always will. And I’ll make damn sure she never forgets it.
I carry her through the house and up the stairs, straight into my bedroom. Into my bed. I should’ve taken her to a guest room. But the thought of her lying anywhere else made something twist in my chest.
