Wicked Mafia Prince (A Dangerous Royals Romance, #2)(54)

“You’d corrupt me from my heart’s desire to be a nun?”

“The old Tanechka would never kneel and pray to a god. The old Tanechka knelt before nobody and believed in nothing.”

“And the old Tanechka cannot change?” She’s wild, dangerous.

But then, just as quickly as she attacked me, she eases off, looking at her hands. She stands. “No matter what you’ve done, you’re loveable. You are worthy of God’s love.”

“Stop talking about God!”

“God knows your heart, and he loves you. He knows you, and he still loves you.”

I surge to my feet and slam my fist into the wall, feeling the skin break. “Stop talking about God!”

I slam my fist in again and again.

“I don’t want God’s love.” Plaster breaks around my knuckles, gouges my skin. “I don’t want your stupid prayers!”

“Stop, Viktor!”

I keep on. I’m out of her reach. She can do nothing to stop me.

I think of her face the day I shoved her into Dariali Gorge. The way she pleaded with me. The way she clung to me. Predatel, I called her.

I punch the wall again and again. The cuts deepen. My hand is wet with blood, the pain more and more intense. It’s nothing compared to how my heart feels.

I didn’t believe in her like I should’ve. I didn’t believe in us. I didn’t understand she was operating as a double agent, pretending to have gone over to a rival gang to save her mother. All we knew was that she’d given secrets to the enemy. Kissed their leader, Sergei. We had photos. We had recordings of phone calls. It was only later that we put it together, how she planned to turn it all back on them after she had her mother back safely. We found a notebook where she’d worked it all out, and I could see the Rubik’s Cube thinking in it.

But it was too late. I was nineteen and so in love, I couldn’t see straight. So in love with her that I was beyond listening, beyond reach. Beyond anything. And the gang my only family. And I killed her.

The hole in the wall grows red with my blood. I should’ve believed in her.

“Viktor!”

“I’ll f*ck you and hurt you and take you from your stupid god and you can’t stop me.” I slam my fist in even harder. Pain shoots up my arm. “And don’t say my name like you know me.”

That’s when the shot rips out, like an explosion in the wall to my right. I still and turn, ears ringing, pulse racing.

She has my Glock. The rug is bunched up on the floor. Did she use the rug to pull the gun to her? “Get over here,” she growls.

My throbbing fist is warm with blood. “Tanechka?”

She gestures with the gun at a spot on the floor in front of her. “Now.”

Mischa bursts into the room.

“Leave us,” I say.

He turns and leaves.

I turn my attention back to Tanechka. I want to cry. She’s back.

Again she gestures at the floor.

My heart pounds as I fall to my knees in front of her. She gazes down at me so strangely. I don’t know what it is. I think it’s her hate stare, grown so hot it’s gone cold. Like the dark side of the sun.

I grab her legs. “I’m sorry, Tanechka.” I bury my face in her thighs, making her jeans wet with tears and blood. “I didn’t believe in us, and I was so rash, so wrong, so, so sorry. I’d die a million times to take it back—”

“Get off me,” she growls.

My heart pounds.

Tanechka!

I never thought I’d see her again. Once more she gestures with the gun. “Lie down. Facedown on the floor.”

Cold shivers go over me. She means to shoot me execution style.

It’s only right.

Except I want to die looking at her. I want to look at her as I breathe my last breath, as the pain melts away.

“Down! Do it!”

I swallow. I will obey. This is what I’ve earned, then. To die alone at her hands, face shoved into the bearskin rug.

I suck in a breath and lay myself in front of her, fingers knit behind my neck. I weep into the rough fur, thinking about our quest to find Kiro, this brother I’ll never know. My love for Aleksio. Most of all, Tanechka. She makes the world beautiful. She’s back.

And now this pain I’ve carried for so long will be washed clean by the only person who can wash it.

“I’m not afraid,” I say.

She’s silent, standing over me. What’s she thinking? What’s she waiting for?

I cast her into the gorge even as she begged me not to. She clung to me to the last. We were lost together. We were soul mates. We were each other’s island. She clung to me as I cast her off.

“Make me suffer as I made you suffer. End this.”

She kicks at my hands. “Hands down. Lie on your side.”

I press my hands to my sides and lie on one of them, holding my breath. Whatever way she wants it.

She stands over me. I look at her stocking feet. The ragged ends of the jeans. “Eyes shut,” she commands.

I shut my eyes. I hear a soft rustling sound above me. I hear her behind me. What is she doing? I feel a tickle on the back of my head. A hand over my arm. She stretches her body out behind mine. She presses a kiss to the back of my neck, arm draped over me, gun still in her hand.