Because when the time comes, and it will be soon, I’ll put the knife in her hand myself.
“Yes, yes,” he says lazily. “You are ruthless, I’ll grant you that. I didn’t expect it from the little girl who once cried and screamed for help.”
Hearing him say that makes me sick.
It burns.
It makes me want to tear his throat out.
On the outside, I don’t so much as move.
Not a single fucking inch.
“I’ve heard about your other identity,” he goes on. “Death, you call yourself…”
“I don’t give a damn what you’ve heard,” she replies. “But I promise you, you’ll become very well acquainted with her.Death, I mean.”
I picture him at my feet, his blood spreading across this immaculate white floor, staining it beyond repair.
He still smiles.
“Look, don’t take it personally,” he says. “I saved Yuri after you tried to kill him. I don’t know the details, but he called me, and I went after him. Once he recovered, I allowed him to come afteryou. We can’t afford to look weak. At the time, I had no idea you were this… Death.”
His eyes shift to me.
“I heard my pathetic son had taken an unusual interest in a girl, so I made a few enquiries. I needed the girl close at hand, something to use against him. Imagine my surprise when I realised it was you… my kukolka.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snaps.
He laughs.
“So I started digging deeper. I connected the dots and realised you wereDeath.I couldn’t very well let Yuri kill you once I understood what you were worth. You served a better purpose alive. A weapon to use against my son.” The way his eyes move over her has my hands tightening into fists. “Break him through you. And perhaps amuse myself along the way. For old times’ sake. So I staged your death, let Yuri settle a few grudges, and now here we are.”
He studies her, his revolting eyes glinting.
“I see all that fire in you,” he says. “That’s what I liked most. You always thought you were strong. I enjoy proving people like you wrong, hearing them scream, watching them cry, seeing that strength drain out of their eyes.”
“I was thirteen, you sick fuck,” she spits.
And just like that, I am no longer in the room.
The present falls away, and I am pulled back into the past.
Chapter 74
Milo
Fifteen years ago.
I look down at the dead man at my feet, and I feel nothing.
My first kill came at nine, already late by my father’s standards.
Death has never frightened me.
This world does.
From the moment I was born, I searched for something good in it, because all I have ever witnessed is suffering, despair, and cruelty.
