If this entire situation is as fucked up as it’s turning out to be, why hasn’t she come down and handled it herself?
I turn off the shower with a snap of my wrist, irritated. I need to get back to Rori to try to talk her out of this insane plane.
No one stops me when I leave my room, making my way down the hall and across to another one where they put her. I know they did that shit on purpose, probably to make sure catching me was easy if they decided to stop me, but they can kiss my ass. Nothing will keep me from her.
Reaching her door, I stop and listen, but I hear no noise on the other side. My lips pull down in a hard frown. Did she leave? Then I hear the faintest sound, and a soft whine. Hades is inthere, and she won’t leave him alone. Not here. Relief fills me. Alright, time to get to work.
It takes me a minute to pick the lock, and I walk inside, braced and ready to move if she tries to take me out or sics Hades on me. Instead, I find the room empty, and the bathroom door shut. There’s movement on the other side, and I can hear Hades in there with her, pacing.
I shut the door and lock it again. I don’t need us to be disturbed. I wouldn’t put it past that Zakhar fucker to try and get in here to make a move on her. Again. I don’t care if it will start a war with the Russians, because I’ll wring his fucking neck.
Rori is mine.
I barely sit myself on the edge of her bed to wait when the door to her room opens, and I’m already up. I barely have time to register it’s Simeon Belov before I’m grabbing him, spinning him, and shoving him face-first into the wall.
He tries to kick his leg back to trip me. Unlucky for him, that only pisses me off further. He manages to get an elbow into my gut, making me release him, but when he tries to attack me, I tackle him, sending us both crashing into the door. “Fucker!” Simeon hisses when I head butt him, but he follows it up with a knee to the gut and a shove that has me falling into the chair in the corner.
“Asshole,” I spit, rolling quickly to my feet, ignoring the pain. He swipes his hand under his nose, wiping away the blood dripping from it. “Next time, I’ll break it. What the fuck do you think you’re doing in here?”
“Me? What the fuck are you doing in my fiancée’s room?”
Wrong fucking thing to say. Rage and jealousy blur, and I’m on him again. This time, I grab both his hands, block the knee he aims, and spin him around, using my hand to grab him by the hair, making him yelp in surprise and pain when I slam him against the wall.
He’s shorter than me, so I lean down and hiss, “I’ve already fucking told you, asshole, she isn’t fucking marrying you. She’s mine.”
“She already told you that she didn’t want you here, so fuck you,” he bites out, his words slightly muffled from the wood he’s pressed against. “You had your chance, prick, and you blew it. I heard all about it.”
I press harder, making him grunt and struggle. “Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t give a fuck what you heard. Aurora O’Brien is mine. She has been mine, and she always will be. Whatever shit I fucked up, I’ll fix. And I’m not about to sit around and watch as you use her the way your father and hers have tried to. Get in my way, and I’ll kill you. She. Is. Mine.”
“Fuck you.”
I’m about ready to snap this fucker’s neck, consequences be damned, when I hear a low warning growl behind me, a gun press against the middle of my spine, and a second one comes up and press against Simeon’s temple.
We freeze, and I can hear Simeon’s breathing start to hitch.
“Alonzo, let him go. Now.” The order is sharp, and even though I want to shake my head, tell her that I’m not doing shit with this prick, she digs her gun a little harder into my back, and I force myself to release him. The gun falls away, but I don’t trust her not to shoot me just to make a point, so I side step her, quickly turning around as she drops her gun from Simeon’s temple and calls off Hades.
I stare at the woman in front of us, and my heart stops. But not in a good way, or in the way that they describe in those stupid books the women were talking about.
The woman in front of me is a stranger. She’s become someone—something—else. What the fuck did she do?
The only recognizable part of her is the green of her eyes, but they’re flat, devoid of any of the emotion I’m accustomed to seeing. I take her in, feeling a mixture of desire and confusion.
Gone is her bleached blonde hair, replaced by a short black pixie cut that makes her face look far sharper. Her makeup is completely removed, including the bright red of her lips, the natural pink now the only color allowed to show. She’s changed into a dark black top that fits her so tightly she looks almost flat, like she’s banded her breasts to make her look more manly, and covers every inch of skin except her hands. She’s wearing an equally black set of pants that hug every inch of her legs and hips, and on her feet are black combat boots that add another inch to her height.
She puts the guns in two holsters, one at her back and the other at her side, just under her left breast, and I absently notice that her nails are no longer painted a bold color but back to bare and cut short.
I struggle to grasp what I’m seeing, while battling the knowledge that this is the woman who was in my bed only a few weeks ago, soft and warm, screaming my name and driving me insane.
Gone is Aurora O’Brien, the woman I’ve fallen head over heels for, and in her place stands a woman I barely recognize. Rayea Antonova is back.
24
RORI
A little bit earlier:
I try notto let the emotions overwhelm me as I stare at the items on the counter, but my brain is screaming at me not to do it, this is a mistake, while my gut is reminding me that this is the only way.
