Giovanni crouches to the ground like a pussy, unable to serve for his own actions.
He pleads something, but I ignore him and grab him by the back of his jacket. Giovanni didn’t even try to hide, let alone run. What happened to the confidence he had before?
There’s a struggle in his arms to hold himself up, and I’ve hardly wounded him. He shot me last night and I’m still standing. The sound of his gun still echoes in my mind.
Mr. Gray takes a gun out of his waistband and places a bullet in the center of the man’s forehead. He gives it no second thought, shows no sign of mercy. He shows no emotion at all.
My heart drops, and I shudder at the loud gunfire. A high-pitched ringing fills my ears and makes everything around me sound muffled. I had no idea they could be so loud.
The man falls to the ground, and I watch the endless stream of blood flow from his skull. I stare at the dead man as if I’ve seen many bodies drop to the floor. It doesn’t shock me as much as I thought it would. Seeing the man fall to the ground isn’t what scares me—it’s the sound of him choking on his own blood. It gurgles through his closing throat while he fights for his final breath of air.
Mr. Gray walks up to the dead man and mutters something under his breath. He’s calm and collected. That should terrify me, but it doesn’t. In fact, I admire it. Even at the age of thirteen, I’m not ignorant to the idea the man who hit me deserved to die.
“Never speak empty threats. If you have a purpose, you stay true to it.” He looks directly at me.
Looking down at the wound, I notice the stitches are ripped open.
“How’s that healing up?” he asks smugly.
“Just fine,” I tell him. I step on the fingers of his exposed hand, and he turns his head away from me, but I direct it back to me and take in a deep breath. “Are you going to piss yourself?” I ask him.
He smiles, almost encouraging me to continue. I grow tired of his repetitive actions. I reach for my gun and reload it. Pavel would have done this. I place the eye of the pistol in the center of his mouth, dying to press the trigger—how ironic is that?
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him lift something in his other hand. Before I have a moment to react, Sloane runs in front of me, grabbing onto my hand.
Why the fuck is she here? How did she even get out?
Her eyes search mine, but I look away. I can’t even look her in the eyes anymore.
“Giovanni, are you fucking kidding me?” Max says, kicking the gun out of his hands. He lifts Giovanni up, holding his weight over his shoulder. He walks him out of the courtyard, and I watch him limp away.
“Mikhail, look at me,” Sloane demands. My teeth grind and my jaw tightens. “Est tolko ti i ya.” There is only you and me.
I turn my head away from her again, but her hands find my cheek, and she brushes her smooth skin against mine. “Eto moya ochered bit sylnim dlya tebya.” It’s my turn to be strong for you.
“Vi nichego ne znayete,” I mutter. You know nothing.
This is what I get for trusting someone again. Maybe I just got too comfortable or I missed having that special person. What I felt seemed so unique, something that could forever be mine. I wasn’t forced to deal with the feeling of being alone anymore.
Before Sloane, I was fine. I was comfortable with staying by myself no matter how much the thought of being like this forever terrified me deep down.
All I wanted was that one person. The one I could go to no matter what, knowing they’d support me for once.
I would’ve been a lot further ahead in life if I’d put myself first. If I hadn’t worried about what others needed of me. I should have left Sloane alone.
Her thumb presses against my lips, and she brings her face in close to mine. I couldn’t pull away from her even if I wanted to. It feels as if my heart is tied to hers.
“Ya znayu tebya. Prosti menya,” she whispers. I know you. Forgive me.
All my life I’ve been taught the same lesson over and over again: never trust or rely on anyone. But this is different somehow . . . “It’s my turn to be strong,” she told me. Those are the words I saved for Kirill. I made sure to protect him even when I didn’t feel like he deserved me. I gave everything I was to my brother, and I got nothing in return.
“You hurt me,” I tell her. “You used my trust like it meant nothing to you.”
Her mouth drops. “It meant everything to me. It might not seem like it, but I have been by your side for years, Mikhail. Pavel came to me because he thought you’d need someone like me. If you opened that fucking letter, maybe you’d know.”
My eyes fall. The letter. I was saving that. “How do you know about the letter?” I ask.
“Because it’s about me. Pavel told me he’d write down my information. I was supposed to work for you—then you kidnapped me and ruined everything.”
“I ruined everything? You just had to tell me, Sloane!” I yell at her.
“I couldn’t! He didn’t want me to!”
I rub my forehead in frustration as I try to understand everything. Now I’m pissed at her for two things: betraying me and then not fucking communicating correctly.
“He said I was the glue. That the both of you needed me because the Clarkes are going to come.”
I nod slowly. “Because of the property.”
Her eyes roam over my body, taking in every look she can get. “You stayed because of Pavel?” I ask.
“No. I stayed because I wanted to be by your side. I wasn’t really thinking much about Pavel when I was with you.”
“Now . . . excuse the fuck out of my French, but why the fuck should I trust you?”
Her head falls back with annoyance. “Mikhail, everything was real. I just had to do what Pavel asked of me. You would’ve done the same thing!” she shouts.
I’ve never had someone want to be by my side, and yet Sloane wants to. For years I have denied my heart from feeling anything other than hate, only to find something stronger in Sloane.
Commitment.
She is just like me.
I don’t want the sappy shit that a child defines as love, and neither does she. Everyone who thinks love is created by two souls adoring one another unconditionally can go fuck themselves. All love is conditional. It is my choice to give myself to another person. This fifty-fifty crap is worth nothing more than roadkill. It should always be one hundred-one hundred. I want to see an effort. I want to see the passion behind her anger. Her anger should be blinding to the point where I only see her. At the end of the day, I want her to fall asleep in my arms because she fucking wants to—because she chose me too.
She let me shoot Giovanni, but she must’ve seen his gun. She chose to shield me . . . not him.
“Mikhail!” Max’s voice calls through the courtyard. “You shot him, so you drive.”
Sloane looks at me, the shine in her eyes bright. “Prosti menya,” she tells me. I’m sorry.
My arm wraps around her and I rest my chin on her forehead, soaking up the feeling of having her in my arms. “You are in severe debt, Kroshka.”
Letting go of her, I follow behind Max. Sloane struggles to keep up with our long strides. Once we make it outside, Max throws me his keys and gets in the back seat with Giovanni.
“All of this shit was pointless, Mikhail,” Giovanni grits from the back seat.
“Oh, you’d better be joking,” I say with laugh. “I’m real close to shoving a gag in your throat so you shut the fuck up.”
He groans but stays silent. Fucking finally. I take my time with the drive. I turn down wrong exits just so Giovanni will suffer longer. Max gives me directions as if I don’t know who they go to for medical help.
Eventually, we make it to the run-down building, and I shift the car into park. Max opens the car door and helps Giovanni out.
“I can walk by myself,” he tells him.
“It didn’t seem like that a minute ago,” Max says with his smart mouth.
Max stops walking once we reach the steps. He bangs on the door over and over again until a man swings it open.
“Are you kidding me?”
“I wish I were,” Giovanni admits.
The man looks behind us to see if anyone followed and then lets the four of us walk inside. His home looks normal until we go into the basement. Here it looks exactly like an operating room in a hospital.
“What’s the doc’s name?” I ask.
“Jacob, and this is Mikhail,” Max says.
“Nice to meet you,” I offer him my hand, and he takes it.
“You as well,” he says with a smile. “Lay him down,” the doc orders. “Giovanni, I don’t have anesthesia, so you’ll have to go without it.”
He lies down on the table and swears under his breath.
“You know,” I start, “for the Boss, you’re one weak motherfucker.”
“Mikhail,” Max warns, and I smile.
“You have an exit wound, so whatever it was laced with shouldn’t be an issue.”
“Fantastic. Now stitch me up,” Giovanni orders.
“I said there was an exit wound, not that there aren’t any fragments in your organs. I’ll have to take a look.”
“Get on with it,” he tells him.
He brings a white cloth to his face. “You’ll need this.” He lifts the scalpel to his shoulder and digs through it. He clenches his teeth around the cloth with pressure to stop himself from yelling out in pain.
“I’m going to fucking kill him. I don’t know why yet, but it doesn’t feel like he’s helping me. He’s making my pain worse,” Giovanni grunts.
Max laughs, and I do too. Sloane watches us as if we’re insane, and I don’t blame her.
“Giovanni, what blood type are you?”
“Something B.”
“Any of you have O negative blood?”
Fuck. The room goes silent. I could laugh my ass off. Knox would have had his blood type. This guy doesn’t know what he’s doing.
“No one?” he asks once more.
Double fuck.
“I do,” I grit through my teeth.
“You can laugh, Stepanov. This is funny,” Giovanni says with a laugh.
I take a step closer to him and dig my thumb into his wound, just like Sloane did to me. I had no idea the pressure hurts more than the actual wound itself, and I’m not sure if Giovanni does yet.
“What the fuck!” Giovanni screams, and I can’t help but smile. He seethes in pain before he says, “How do you sleep at night knowing you’re scum?”
“Like a baby.”
The doc brings equipment to the table and puts on gloves. “I’ll need your arm,” he tells me.
I shake my head and roll up my sleeve. “Just do it,” I mumble to Jacob.
The irony of giving blood to the man I intended to kill is beyond me.
