Ronan chuckled. “You couldn’t organize a luncheon, let alone an uprising.”
With a growl, Dimitri lunged toward him, but Ivan held him back. Ivan had barely cast me a glance since I arrived. He either felt guilty for leaving me to fend for myself, or he was not the man I thought I knew.
Papa must hold some esteem for his sons because the insult to Dimitri made him seethe. He glared at Ronan with venom.
“An inch. A single inch, and you would have been dead. I will regret that inch until I die.”
It felt like I had been transported to another world. One full of mud and gravity so heavy it dislodged my heart. This world revolved in the opposite direction. Spinning faster and faster.
“Then I guess you should be thankful you’ll be free of that regret shortly.”
“We have come to finish this,” Papa snapped. “So let us do it now.”
Ronan handed his gun to Albert just as Papa did so with Ivan. Detached, I followed Ronan to meet my father in the middle of opposing sides. My papa wouldn’t meet my eyes. I didn’t care. This world was heavy and unstable.
When Ronan looked at me, the spinning stopped. His eyes held me steady. Dark blue. The color of the one heart-shaped earring in my ear. And full of things unsaid. I didn’t ever want to look away, but I was forced to.
An explosion threw me back a step and trembled the ground. With a curse, Ronan shoved me behind him. Pieces of the silo flew through the air, fiery tin chunks landing in the mud. And then a closer boom split through the air, nearly knocking me off my feet. My ears rang, and I touched one, wincing when I came away with blood. Disoriented, I blinked through the thick smoke.
This world was spinning and on fire.
Both silos were in flames, and a smaller blast sent sharp shards of tin into the air. Ronan grabbed me and cradled my head against the falling shrapnel. The smoke cleared just enough to see my papa and the silver glint of a pistol aimed at Ronan’s back.
“NO,” tore through my body. I could handle mourning so much.
But not Ronan.
Never Ronan.
My heart made the decision for me. I shoved him away from me just as a pop sounded.
Then everything went silent.
The smoke drifted away.
Shrapnel stopped falling.
This world wasn’t spinning.
It was cold, quiet, and so very dark.
absquatulate
(v.) to leave without saying goodbye
I’d once thought Ronan would let me drown; that he would watch me sink, curly hair floating and aglow. But in the end, it was his voice that dragged me from the darkness.
“Prosnis’, Mila.” Wake up. “Goddammit, prosnis’.”
Ronan had demanded so much from me since we met—so many orders he was confident would be met—but this request held a vulnerable crack. It wasn’t a demand at all. It was a need.
I found another weakness.
He was weak for me.
Drawing in a shallow breath, I struggled to open my eyes. I forced them open and saw I was lying on the floor of a moving car that vibrated beneath me. Yellow and red. My new coat was ruined, the faux fur matted with streaks of blood. Crimson-soaked bandages lay discarded around me. My shirt was torn open, and the sight of the hole gushing blood in my stomach made me so dizzy I was almost pulled under again. Though Ronan’s voice as he snapped something at Albert grounded me.
My eyes lifted to Ronan, who ripped open a new sterile bandage with his teeth and used it to put pressure on the wound. I tensed in expectation of pain but only felt a twinge in my abdomen as a tremble began to shake my entire body.
Our gazes met.
Russian roulette.
One blink, and—
I’d only miss the sight of him.
A dark, tortured gaze held mine for a long moment. Finally, it seemed to sink into him I was awake and farther from death’s door than he’d assumed. Keeping pressure on my wound, he leaned against the back seat, rested an arm on his elbow, and dropped his head to his chest, eyes closed.
“Ona ne spit,” he exhaled roughly. “Fuck. Ona ne spit.”
“We are almost there,” Albert announced from the front seat.
I’d expected to be in a lot of pain from being shot, though my entire body tingled as if I’d been injected with lidocaine everywhere.
When Ronan opened his eyes, they pinned me with fury. “Zachem ty eto sdelala?” he gritted. “Zachem?”
“English,” I said softly.
“Why the fuck would you do that, Mila?” he growled with a deep rasp. “WHY?”
“You’re not immortal,” I whispered, my throat thick. “I didn’t want you to die.”
He stared at me with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and something else indiscernible. “You don’t get to sacrifice yourself for me.” He clenched his teeth. “You DON’T get to die for me, kotyonok.” His eyes crucified me. “If anyone dies between us, it will be ME. Do you understand?”
I didn’t understand, so I shook my head.
“Then let me make it clear for you,” he said, the shadows in his eyes flashing. “You would survive without me. You would move on.” His tone roughened. “I can’t imagine a world where you and all your fucking yellow doesn’t exist. So if you die, you’ll take me with you. Your sacrifice would mean nothing, kotyonok. NOTHING.”
A tear ran down my cheek as a coldness began to invade the tremble inside me. My marrow was turning to ice, and I shivered violently.
“I’m so cold, Ronan . . .” My eyes felt weighted down, so I closed them.
“Nyet,” Ronan growled, grabbing my face. “Don’t fucking close your eyes.”
“I’m so tired,” I whispered, lethargy pulling at every muscle in my body. “I don’t think . . .”
“If you die, Mila,” he said harshly, “I’ll send Khaos to a back-alley pound.”
My heart beat. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
When the car drew to a stop, Ronan didn’t waste a second. He picked me up and carried me into the hospital. I watched the doctors and nurses rush toward us and throw out questions in Russian. I couldn’t make sense of anything besides what Ronan had threatened as a cold weightlessness consumed me, tugging, pulling, trying to drag me down.
“Don’t do that to Khaos,” I pleaded weakly, interrupting the medical staff.
“Don’t die, and I won’t,” he responded while following the doctors down the hall.
He wasn’t being fair.
“Ronan . . .” A tear slipped down my cheek.
He wiped it away, his tone coarse. “Those are the conditions. You choose.”
How could I choose not to die? Today might be my day, and even D’yavol couldn’t stop fate in its tracks. I may have never gotten the family or love I’d always wanted, but at least I could say I gave it my best shot.
Ronan lay me on a gurney, and a nurse rushed me into an OR room. When a surgeon tried to stop Ronan from entering, he pulled out his pistol and pointed it at the doctor’s head.
“Yesli ona umret, ty tozhe umresh’,” he growled. If she dies, you die too.
The surgeon swallowed, stepped out of his way, and curtly nodded to an area where Ronan could stand.