Wicked Mafia Prince (A Dangerous Royals Romance, #2)(71)

“Ya tebe proshchayu, Viktor.”

He looks stunned. His whisper is hoarse—“I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

“Of course you deserve it. I love you.”

He looks stunned. Uncomprehending. “I am a killer. What about Jesus?”

“I have room for both Jesus and you.”

“Jesus is just fairy tales to me.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’ll shoot if you say one more word in Russian!” the older guard says. An empty threat. The guard won’t shoot unless he has to.

“You forgive me?”

“Yes, pryanichek!” Gingerbread man, it means. A name I used to call him when he was being a baby.

“I tried to kill you!”

I smile. “Yeah, you really f*cked it up.”

He blinks, speaks in a voice so soft. “I love you so much. But look where we are. We can’t have all things now.”

“No.”

“Remember how we visualized it? Like the Olympic team, we visualized this over and over. Remember?”

I shake my head. “Don’t do it.”

“Don’t you see what a gift it is? I threw you off the cliff,” he says. “I didn’t believe in our love, and I killed you. You remember how you clung to me?”

“But I forgive you, Viktor.”

“Do you know how that feels? To have your forgiveness? To take your place? I am complete now.”

“Save Nikki and let me handle this. Respect my choices for once,” I growl in Russian.

“I am respecting your choices. I didn’t have faith in you before, but I do now. Having faith in you means supporting you in all that you choose for yourself, even your Jesus.”

I shake my head, fighting the tears.

“We used to wonder whether the two might even shoot each other,” he says. “Remember?”

“Fantasies.”

“Lisichka—”

I begin to laugh. “We’re arguing over who dies. We promised never to do that, pryanichek.”

He smiles. “You said, ‘Shoot me if we ever argue about who dies in a standoff.’ And then I said, ‘No, shoot me if we argue about who dies in a standoff.’”

In Russian, I say, “You’re going to make me cry and destroy my peripheral vision, you jerk.”

“Tell Kiro I love him, and that I wish I could have met him, and tell Aleksio I love him. He always says we Russians are so f*cking dramatic. What would he say about this?”

“Viktor.”

His face goes serious. “I never stopped loving you.”

“Ya tebya lyublyu,” I tell him. “I love you.” There’s a lump in my throat. I have him back, and now he’s going to do this.

He doesn’t telegraph—he flies at me.

It’s as if he comes in slow motion.

I see everything. His beautiful boxy face with his big jaw, clenched and determined. The sweet little dimple. The twist of his shoulders as he begins the spin, midair. Arms out. I see the flash of the gun barrels as they reflect the ceiling light. The blast.

The weight of him knocks the air from me. I go boneless, arms out. I feel the bullets hit him, feel the violent impact of them on his big body before we hit the floor.

Everything goes quiet.

Except for Viktor, a great weight on my chest, breath labored.

“Viktor!” I ease out from under him. My chest is wet with blood—his blood. Blood on my hands. Blood everywhere. The two guards are down. Everyone’s down.

I kneel over him. He looks up at me hazily.

“Pryanichek.” I rip apart his shirt.

There’s a big hole in his chest. Too big. Too big for his heart. Too big for life.

I press a hand to his chest. “Don’t you die on me, Viktor!” Maybe it’s his heart. Maybe not.

“You love me still,” he whispers. “You forgave me.”

Shots. “Nikki!” I call.

He’s losing so much blood. “I forgive you, yes, but only if you fight. Only if you stay alive.” I adjust my hand on his chest. I press a hand to his cheek, keep contact with his gaze. He’s sweating. But his skin is cold.

He still sees me, though. It’s good—when they don’t die immediately, there’s hope.

Nikki arrives. “Fuck.” I hear her call 911.

Viktor needs help sooner.

“Can you walk? Do we move you or wait? What happens if we help you to the car?”

Sometimes you can ask the wounded such things. Sometimes when life is on the line, they get such clarity.

“Yes. Let’s try.”

Nikki and I pull him up and get him down the hall. It’s slow, and his breathing doesn’t sound right. A collapsed lung.

We get out of the building, down two steps that didn’t seem so bad before. I spot Viktor’s car. “There. The Navigator.”

“Keys, right pocket,” he gasps.

Nikki grabs them and opens the back door for us. Viktor stumbles in and flops sideways, taking the whole seat. I wedge myself into the little space between the back seat and the back of the front seat, crouching between. I press my hand to his chest. “You think you can take the whole seat?” I joke.

Viktor groans as the car peels out. Nikki drives like hell to the hospital.