“I did this. Blame me. Put all the blame on me,dikaya koshka,” Dominik says, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
For a split-second, I try to put myself in his shoes. I’m grateful Gavriil didn’t make me choose between Dominik or my brother. That’s all I have to be thankful for at the moment as I stare at Archer’s still body. Tears well up in my eyes and race each other down my cheeks.
“Alina,” Dominik says—begs, wanting me to look at him. I know the exact moment Dominik dies inside, because I feel it too. He says my name again and again like a prayer, a promise, a wound. It’s a sound that will haunt every nightmare I have for the rest of my life.
“Kneel, Dominik,” Gavriil orders. “You’ve already made an ugly mess of your stitches.”
God, his stitches. He’s tearing himself open for me again.
Dominik drops to his knees as if the weight of the world pushed him down.
“If you hurt him or his men, our deal is over,” I say through gritted teeth, glad I’m not facing Gavriil, that he can’t see the tears running down my face.
Gavriil lowers his arm from my chest and the gun. “I keep my word.”
“Let me say goodbye,” I whisper.
Gavriil sounds amused when he replies, “I’ll give you two sentences.”
I take a half step toward Dominik, but that’s as close as I can make my feet go. I can’t meet his eyes, so I look at the blood staining his side.
“I don’t blame you. Just like I know you won’t blame me for making this decision to try and protect you,” I tell him, voice steady by sheer force. I shouldn’t use a third sentence, but I do. “Don’t come for me before the month is over.”
Dominik’s mouth tilts with something that hurts to look at—a ghost of a smile. “Hellcat, I can’t...”
I shake my head and swallow a sob. “Don’t.”
“You’re still mine,” he says—raw, reverent, wrecked. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Those four words shatter me.
“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.
