Good. Bitch doesn’t deserve to live. If she’s still around when I circle back to her, I’ll make sure I pull each one out. Make her watch herself take her last breath.
“Georgiy,” I hear Bane moan, and I feel rage pulse through me again. It’s heavy, a sweeping tide, coming to collect.
I see him struggling to sit up, trying to come to my aid, but I need him to stop moving. I need him to stay still. There’s so much blood. So much.
More than when I was torn apart.
A wretched sound leaves my throat as a man I recognize moves into the light.
A shadow forming a figure. I remember him.
Emin.
He was supposed to be dead. I thought Mikhail had taken care of this.
“Hello, Georgiy. Long time no see,” he says, aiming a gun at me.
“You,” I growl.
“Yes, me,” he says with a grin. I remember that smile. The one he had the entire time as he watched me be pulled apart. As he slowly destroyed me.
Just like he’s done to Bane.
My fingers flex on the knife in my hand and the other on the vial of poison.
We’ll see which one I end up using.
“Don’t come any closer,” Emin says, pointing the gun at Bane. “Or I’ll make sure you never see him again.”
Bane lets out a whimper, and I see that Henry has pulled himself up, blood seeping from his wound, a knife held up to Bane’s neck. Henry is pale, his breathing erratic, so close to the end.
And even so, they’re trying to take him from me.
They’ll regret that.
My eyes move back to Emin, who looks as if he has nothing to lose.
Well, I don’t either.
He has no idea what I’m willing to do, how my patience has snapped.
“Tell me, Emin,” I say, my voice low and dark. “How would you like to die?”
He lets out a laugh. “I don’t think you’ll get close enough to harm me.”
“I think I will.”
I hear Bane cry out behind me, and I turn toward him to see Henry dragging the knife across his shoulders, blood shooting out as veins are exposed.
His eyes are on me, tears streaming down his cheeks. Something indefinable blooms inside me, and I know I have to tell him.
I have to.
“I love you, Bane,” I say, and those tears turn to sobs. “I will always love you.”
And then I move.
With a roar, I rush forward, the force of a bullet ripping through my shoulder, but I don’t stop. I refuse to stop.
