“As expected,” I snapped at him. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and took several long pulls.
His eyes fell to my hands, still bloody, gripping the plastic.“Is he alive?”
“For now. Where is she?” Max dropped my eyes for a moment, and tension tightened my gut. “What?”
“She got upset when we got back. I had to sedate her.”
I stared at Max, anger pulsing beneath my skin.
Max fidgeted. “I didn’t touch her except for that, and I didn’t give her a lot. She was upsetting herself.” I stared at him until he moved toward the doorway. “I guess you don’t need me anymore, so I should leave you alone.”
My ears perked at the sound of a door opening along the corridor.“Did you restrain her?”
“No, she was drugged,” Max said quickly. His expression told me he knew he’d fucked up.
Molly appeared in the doorway, looking disheveled as hell. Her clothes were rumpled, and her hair was a wild, tangled cloud around her shoulders. Her face needed a wash, and her eyes held a sleepy, recently drugged look. I felt a jolt down to my bones when her eyes met mine. It was the first truly honest look we’d shared in seven years. I knew I looked as hellish. Her gaze fell to my exposed forearms, still wreathed in blood, splashed across the ink that held my story tattooed on my arms.
“It’s your father’s,” I found myself saying. Tonight seemed to be the night for brutal honesty.
Mallory swallowed, and her delicate throat bobbed. “Is he dead?” Her voice was stronger than I’d thought. She didn’t cry or beg. She stood with her shoulders straight and her head raised like a queen.
“Not yet. I promised you one day I’d even the score with Henry. I did it for you like I always promised. Aren’t you going to thank me?” My dry sarcasm sent color back to her pale cheeks. Ah, there she was. My angry girl.
Somehow, she managed not to rise to that statement. “Are you going to kill him?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” I snapped. “Why? Feel like begging me to spare him?”
“Would you listen if I did?” Molly asked, tilting her head to the side.
I couldn’t meet those green eyes. They saw too much.
I turned to the bar behind me and poured a generous slosh of amber liquid into a cut crystal glass. “Why do you care? You hate your father, last time I checked.”
She shook her head. “I don’t hate anyone. Not even you.”
I couldn’t contain the dark chuckle rising in my chest. “Oh, what a shame for you, Princess. You don’t hate him, and you don’t hate me . . . but you will.” I snapped my fingers at Max and the other men standing guard around the kitchen. “Leave us.”
28
MOLLY
After Max, the fucker, sank a needle into my arm and left me on Kirill’s bed, my thoughts spiraled in a never-ending loop.
I saw Theo and Fede on the other end of a loaded gun. I saw Kirill, the boy in the trailer who’d given up his dreams for me.
In my drugged state, I fantasized I could see Kirill as I’d known and loved him, trapped inside this unpredictable, angry stranger’s body, begging me to help him escape.
This wasn’t a nightmare or a game. Kirill had shot someone in cold blood in front of me. I couldn’t get the blast of the gunshot out of my mind. It echoed through the chambers of my heart. When he’d locked me in his office and tied me to the bed, I was pissed off. But in my heart, I hadn’t understood how serious this was.I got it now.
I passed out for a while, drifting in and out of consciousness. I couldn’t move. I could only hold on while wave after wave of memories washed over me. I was on an important precipice, and the wrong move would plunge me into darkness forever.I was being pulled between two extremes, my head battling my heart.
The real question was, did I want to live in the light if Kirill wasn’t with me?
I couldn’t ignore the pain in my heart at the thought. My head had never been stronger than the pull of my heart. The thought of what Kirill had suffered without me,forme, would haunt me for the rest of my life. I loved two people in this world. One lay in Grateful Dawn nursing home, and the other was Kirill Lewis.
No, not Kirill Lewis. Kirill Chernov.Denying it was futile.
What if it's not too late? A voice of rare optimism whispered.