Page 80 of Beautiful Ruin

It is merely tyranny.

“I will always serve my Pakhan without question.” I pull in a breath, and then I raise my gun, aiming it directly at his chest. “But that man is no longer you.”

Ivan’s face hardens.

My finger flexes on the trigger at the exact moment that he lunges forward. He collides with my body at an angle, driving his shoulder into my chest and knocking the breath from me in one violent burst. Then my back slams into the floor. The impact rattles through my spine so hard my vision whites for half a second.

The fist that catches my jaw stuns me for a split second, long enough to knock the gun from my hand. Pain detonates bright and hot across the side of my face as another one comes. My head whips sideways into the carpet as copper floods my mouth from where my teeth slice the inside of my cheek. Somewhere to my left the gun skids across the floor and out of reach.

I don’t bother fighting for it. I know Ivan too well to do something stupid like that. The second my eyes leave him to lunge for the weapon, he’ll break my nose, my throat, my ribs, whatever piece of me he can ruin fastest to stop me from standing up again.

So I stay where I am and hit him with my own fist.

My knuckles crash into the side of his face hard enough to snap his head sharply to the side. Ivan snarls low in his throat as he rears back around, the sound so animalistic and unfamiliar it almost throws me. He grabs a fistful of my shirt at the collar and slams me back onto the floor, hard enough to make my head ring.

Old reflex roars up from somewhere underneath the tailored discipline ingrained in me to protect him. I twist, not away from the pressure, but into it. My hand catches his wrist to stop him from grabbing at me again, my knee jerking upward hard and catching his hip to throw him off balance.

He flies off me when I throw my body weight against his the second my knee connects with him. He crashes to the floor next to me, a strained grunt leaving him. I roll and push up onto my hands and knees and drive my elbow up between us when he comes at me again.

It hits him right beneath the sternum where he’d been shot. He hisses through his teeth, the sound breaking with pain as the movement yanks at whatever residual pain is still there.

That’s all I need.

I twist hard and shove at him again. Our bodies rock sideways across the floor, colliding with his desk. Things topple off it, crashing to the ground around us. Ivan catches himself before he fully loses purchase of me and fists one hand around my shirt and the other in my hair.

He’s stronger than he should be. Or maybe the rage and adrenaline are turning him into something hard to contain.

“That all you got, boy?” he taunts. The grip in my hair turns painful. “I expected more from you than this.”

I slam my forehead into his. Not exactly a move I’d advise anyone sober enough to avoid it to do, but it works. The crack of skull against skull stuns us both.

His curse is slurred and vicious, but he lets me go immediately. My vision flashes and doubles, pain ringing through the center of my head like a bell. Warmth spills from somewhere near my hairline and the room sways.

I blink through the haze until my vision clears and grab the front of his jacket to haul him close enough that our breaths collide in the air between us.

“You of all people should know better than to underestimate your opponent.”

His eyes flicker and then widen slightly when my fist slams into the side of his head. I let him go, watching him slump to the floor with a choked groan. He fumbles as he fights to push himself up off the floor, one hand slipping briefly in the smear of blood between us. But I’m already moving, pushing to my feet.

My ribs scream when I rise. My jaw throbs, my mouth burning from where he split my lip open. Every breath feels like dragging barbed wire across my chest.

I cross the room to where my gun lies near the door. My hand closes around the grip, my fingers locking into place automatically even with blood slicking the web between thumb and forefinger. When I turn to train the muzzle on him again, he’s already looking at me.

Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth and his temple. One eye is already swelling shut. My own face hurts, mirroring the injuries on his in a grotesque reflection I can feel more than see.

Fitting.

We always were cut from the same cloth.

The gunshot is deafening.

I always thought when this moment came, I would be shaking so badly I wouldn’t be able to hold the weapon level. That something inside me would revolt against the idea and fight to save him from me by force.

But the gun stays up, the barrel aimed right at his chest.

My trigger finger rests where it should.

He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, then looks at the blood smeared across his skin like it belongs to someone else. When his gaze lifts to mine again, there is no fear in it. Just bitter understanding.