As I shake out my exhausted limbs, I bitterly wonder why I’m even continuing with the sessions since I can’t help but think that my need for self-defense is about to become obsolete. No one cared who I was before I dated Asher, and I presume that after some time, people will forget about me. It’s not that I care about the notoriety, it’s that I still can’t believe that our relationship is over.
“The breakup will be formally announced a week after Edward Langford’s memorial.”
Flores’s statement, no matter how gently she delivered it, still rakes across my mind like jagged glass. I know I asked for this, I know I ended things, but that doesn’t mean it’s not killing me inside.
I wonder again what my life will look like once this is all over. Where will I live? Where will I work? Will Lennox Rose still want me as a brand ambassador? There are a million unknowns, a million unanswered questions, and the thought of facing them fills me with dread.
The only thing I’m sure of is the fact that I’ll stay safely hidden away until the fallout over the breakup is over. Because I have no choice. Fucking overprotective Asher.
I’m also dreading the moment I re-enter society. Accordingto Flores, Emily is already barely keeping her head above water with the rumors and questions about my current absence, and that’s without a breakup. A very public breakup where one member of the relationship is hidden out of sight. People will only buy the “she’s on a much-needed vacation” excuse for so long before it becomes suspicious, and a suspicious public does not make for a quiet life—PR wise.
But most of all, I’m dreading a life without Asher.
“Hey,”Flores says, sitting down on the couch next to me that night after dinner.
I pause my movie that I’m not really paying attention to. “Hey.”
“I was probably a little harsh with you yesterday, but I wasn’t wrong.”
I raise my brow.Where is she going with this?
“I have the intel Sterling gave Asher on Volkov regarding his past crimes and victims. I think it’s high time it was shared with you. But be warned, what I’m about to show you is graphic, so if it’s too much, just tell me. I’d rather you not lose your dinner.”
What the hell?
She pulls out a tablet and holds it between us.
“These are the crimes we know are connected to Volkov. He’s never pictured, he’s very good at staying hidden, but that doesn’t mean the blood you’re about to see is not on his hands. He either performed these acts himself or they were performed by his men on his orders.”
She swipes her finger and pulls up an image.
A shock pierces through me, and my breath catches in my chest.
The image is of a man lying in a pool of blood. His open eyes stare blankly into space. But it’s not the death you can seein his eyes, or the blood, that has me reeling. It’s the mutilation of his body. His body was carved and sliced and broken a hundred different ways, presumably before he died.
I swallow hard.
Flores swipes again.
Another image, this time of a much-younger man. A late-aged teenager, probably. Shot through the head and chest at least dozen times.
Another image. Several men dead on a warehouse floor, shell casings surround their bodies, littering the ground like confetti, shimmering among a sea of red.
Another image. More blood.
Another image. More death.
Another image. More carnage.
Swipe after swipe of heinous, graphic, violence, all at the hands of Yegor Volkov.
Another image.
This time of a woman. She’s beautiful, with long golden hair and big blue eyes. Her naked body is covered in blood, mutilated, almost beyond recognition in some places.
“That was the wife of a man who betrayed Volkov,” Flores murmurs. “She was . . . raped by six men before they ended her. He ordered the same thing to be done to the man’s daughter.” She pauses and takes a long breath. “The girl was barely sixteen.”
Tears spring to my eyes as bile creeps up my throat.
