He doesn’t.
Neither do the others around me.
I can’t think. Can’t breathe. Can’t hear anything except the blood in my ears and the last weak shape of her voice saying no hospital.
I turn away because if I don’t, I’m going to start shooting.
I walk.
No direction. No plan. Just movement.
A hallway. A door.
An empty room.
I slam it shut behind me, lock it and beeline for the bathroom.
I brace both hands on the cold sink and stare at the blood staining my skin.
Hers.
It’s under my nails. In the lines of my palms. Drying at my wrists.
There is so much of it.
My chest caves in once, sharp and violent, like my body forgot how to breathe without hurting.
If she dies—
The thought detonates inside me so hard I grip the sink until I think the porcelain might crack.
If she dies, I’ll burn this whole fucking city to the ground.
Arsen. Every Armenian still breathing. Every man who touched her. Every man who knew. I’ll wipe them off the map and leave nothing behind but ash and bone.
They’d have to kill me to stop me.
Because there is no goddamn world where I keep living in it without her.
Not one.
And if this world thinks it gets to take her after putting her in my hands—
After letting me hear her voice.
After letting me say I love you.
Then it can choke on the man it leaves behind.
Chapter 59
Maksim
Istare at my hands.
Because they are covered in her.
Blood black-red in the lines of my skin. Packed beneath my nails. Dry on my wrists. On my knuckles. In the cracks around my cuticles. I turn the water on and shove my hands under so hard I bang bone on porcelain.
