“So.” He lit a match and grinned. “I figured the only way for you to truly know what she suffered that night, what I’ve suffered for years is to baptize you into the flames and let them finish the job!” He grabbed the white horse blanket my mom had given me from the drawer I always kept it in even though I tried to slap his hands away in a vain attempt to get him to stop. “You need your blanket? Well, fucking take it.” The smell of kerosene was almost sickening, I almost blacked out as he did something and then my blanket was on fire, and he was throwing it in the corner next to the curtains. “I hope you rot in hell. And now your last few memories will be of me, taking back what’s mine, and avenging your mother’s death!”
“She loved… me,” I whispered, my voice almost completely gone.
“She loved me too,” he said with a chilling voice. “And she’s gone.”
“Wait.”
The door to my office slammed shut.
I needed to fight, or I was going to die. I couldn’t succumb. I tried to get up and fell back down in the chair, and then I crashed to the floor, as flames licked up the curtains of my office and danced up the ceiling threatening to swallow the room whole.
I reached for the chair and tried to drag myself across the floor, but it was useless, my body felt paralyzed, my vision was going dark.
My brain told me to pull myself to the door, but my limbs weren’t responding, and my eyes were so heavy it was painful.
Smoke filled the room at such a rapid pace that I was suffocating, and I couldn’t even cough. With the combination of not being able to breathe from the drugs and the smoke, I would die before I would feel the first burn.
She wouldn’t see me like this.
Nobody was going to save me.
But at least she was safe.
At least she was home.
My eyes burned as I squeezed out a few coughs, gasping for air.
And then I saw her.
Of course, I did because I was dying.
Really truly dying.
“I’m s-sorry,” I whispered, reaching out to Violet. “Love you…”
My last thoughts were for God to keep her safe from monsters like Sancto.
Monsters like me.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Heaven feels like her touch. I imagine Hell feels like the loss of it. —Valerian Petrov
Violet
“Something’s wrong,” I murmured as the SUV pulled up to the house. I’d had a bad feeling ever since we landed.
Sancto ran out of the house.
He never ran.
Everything about him screamed purpose and control.
And right now, he looked—out of his mind, crazed, and just a bit evil as he made his way toward one of the black SUVs.
“Ash, stop him. I don’t know why, but—” An acrid odor teased my nose as we got out of the SUV, and I sniffed then gagged. “Oh God, that smells like smoke!”
A gunshot tore the air, and something pinged off our SUV. Sancto stood holding a gun, aiming it at our group, at least the ones already out of the car. I knew that Junior would see what was going on from the driver’s side and do what he usually did, mess people up.
“It’s too late!” Sancto’s eyes dripped with hatred, shocking me to my core. He’d always been so kind, so gentle. “He should have died! He killed her!”
I knew what he was talking about.
Valerian’s mom.
I held up my hands. “Sancto, think about this, you can’t kill the Petrov boss without consequences.”
“Hah! You know they were going to vote me to take over from Andrei next? And it would have worked if you hadn’t whored yourself out!”
I glared. “You know what else is going to work?”
He waved the gun like he didn’t care.
“I’m legally his wife, and I’ll fight you to the bitter end for control of this Family. I’m sure it’ll help that I’m his successor according to our marriage contract.” I was lying through my teeth, but I needed to give the others time to take him down as I slowly walked toward him. The smell of smoke was getting worse, and everything in me wanted to race into that mansion to get to the man I loved. But for now, I just needed to stay calm and get to Valerian—if he was still alive. I would not cry. Not now.
He needed me now.
He needed his partner, his queen, to be strong.
I jutted my chin out at Sancto.
Eyes demented, his hand shook as he pointed the gun right at my forehead. “You’re a lying bitch!”
The gun aimed at my head one minute; the next, a gunshot rang out, and blood covered my fingers and part of my face as Sancto went down.
Junior rushed toward me. “You okay?”
“Nice shot.” Serena grinned like there wasn’t a dead body lying down in front of me. “I mean, you were a little to the left but, we can’t all be perfect.”