Page 254 of Maddening Fixation

His shoulders trembled.

Silent sobs escaped him, tears mixing with the blood and saliva at the corner of his mouth.

“It wasn’t Juliet.” The words came out strangled.

My body went still.

The room suddenly felt smaller.

I moved before I could think.

My hand grabbed his jaw, my fingers tightening around his face as I forced him to look at me.

The movement was brutal enough that I heard the joints in his neck strain.

“Are you saying it was Yarina?”

The name felt wrong coming from my mouth.

Impossible.

My mind rejected it before I even heard the answer.

Not Yarina.

Not the woman who had stood beside me.

Not the woman who had saved me when my own blood turned against me.

Sokolov’s eyes filled with pain.

He shook his head weakly.

“I told Yarina before I disappeared.”

My grip tightened. “Told her what?”

His lips trembled. “That you needed to die. She agreed. Because you killed her man. She believed you deserved it.”

Killed her man?

“After they sent you to prison, she grew close to your brother, Sergei,” Sokolov said, swallowing hard. “They fell in love. By the time you were released, she was carrying his child.”

My entire body went still.

“But when you returned, Sergei was the first man you killed.”

His voice trembled.

“Yarina blamed you. She hated you for taking him from her. She wanted you gone, Romeo. She wanted revenge.”

I released him abruptly, as though his skin had burned my hands, and stepped back.

“You’re lying.” My voice came out low. “You’re trying to manipulate me.”

I shook my head.

“Yarina wrote to me throughout my entire time in prison. Every letter. She never once mentioned Sergei. Never once suggested she loved anyone else.”