Chapter 136 136

Chapter 136 136
I’ve already lost my backup, but I don’t give a fuck. I just charge through the house, killing indiscriminately.

We spent summers here for a stretch of years, so the structural layout is somewhat familiar. But it’s been transformed beyond recognition. Gone is the charming country house; in its place is a lurid cesspit of depravity.

The paintings on the walls are violent and sexual, as are the tortured statues lurking in the corners. The red detailing everywhere makes my eyes hurt.

I turn a corner and find myself at the mouth of a broad passageway. More statues line the walls, each one with their mouth open in a permanent scream.

And then, at the very end of it all, I see him.

My brother.

His body is tense with disbelief. But the moment our eyes lock, I know we understand each other. This is going to end today.

I bolt down the hall after him. Like the coward he is, he turns and runs.

“What’s the matter, little brother?” I yell. “Afraid to face me?”

He disappears through a pair of thick double doors. I fire at the lock as I run up, then throw my shoulder into the wood without slowing for even a moment. It splinters and gives way.

I process information instantaneously. I see dark wooden floors, golden wallpaper, a red-felted billiard table in the back.

Then—more motion. My brother is at the back of the room, lunging for a second set of double doors. I pause, draw a stabilizing breath, and level my gun at him.

BAM-BAM.

Two of my bullets scream through the air and destroy the handle of the door he was about to grab. He wails like a wounded banshee and drops to his knees behind the billiard table.

“You want me to respect you, Adrian?” I snarl. “Then you’ll have to stay and face what you’ve done.”

“I’m here,” he calls up. “Let’s just get the lecture over with, shall we?”

I inch closer. “I didn’t come to lecture. I came to talk.”

“Put the gun down then.”

I laugh viciously. “Not the kind of talk I had in mind.”

He rises up, eyeing my gun but sensing that I’m not quite ready to use it yet. “You’re wasting time, Kolya.” He sounds impudent, but his eyes betray him. He’s panicked. He has the look of cornered prey. “We can do this all day, but then it’ll be too late for June.”

I have no way of telling if he’s bluffing or not. But I know I can’t take the risk, and he does, too. “Where is she?”

“The room above this one,” he answers smoothly. “With Radomir Sergeev.”

My blood freezes. “You sold her to Radomir?”

“No, you did,” he retorts. “With your arrogance. But we did agree on no lectures, so I’ll save my breath. It doesn’t matter anyway—I’m sure he’ll sell the scrap back to you once he’s finished, for a very reasonable price. Should be any minute now. They’ve been in there for quite a while already.”

My first thought is to slaughter him with my bare hands.

My second thought is that he isn’t even worth the effort.

All that matters is her.

I turn and sprint hard, bursting out through the door I ruined on my way in. The staircase looms around the corner. I take the steps three at a time. My heart is hammering against my rib cage.

I spy a door and break it down without thinking. Empty.

Another one. Bashed to bits. Empty.

A third, a fourth, a fifth, all coming up empty.

And then I kick open one more, and I see it all.

June.

Radomir.

And blood.

So much fucking blood.

54

KOLYA

June’s eyes veer to me. “I-I… killed him,” she says softly.

The world goes quiet as I walk over to her. I kneel down beside her and gently take the shard of glass from her hand. She’s pierced him in the neck, severing the carotid artery. He must’ve lasted a minute, maybe less.

Her eyes tell me she’s still working through the shock. As the adrenaline ebbs away, the cold reality of what she’s done sinks in.

I remember the first time I killed. It takes something from you, something you never, ever get back.

“Did he touch you?” I ask. “Did he hurt you?”

“He tried to. B-but… I fought back,” she stammers. “I didn’t think. I was just… trying to survive.”

I lean in, cup her face with my hands, and look her in the eye. “June, look at me.” Her pupils focus on mine. “Listen to my voice. It’s me, Kolya.”

“I know,” she says simply.

“I have to get you out of here.”

She puts her hands on my arms. “Get me out of this house.”

I pull her up to her feet. Blood stains the front of the negligee they dressed her in. I’m about to rip my own shirt off my back to give it to her.

But then I feel him behind us.

I tackle June out of the way. It’s not a moment too soon, because a bullet bearing death slices through the space we were just standing, close enough to make the hair on my forearms ripple with its momentum.

“You always were a lousy fucking shot,” I snarl at Adrian where he stands in the doorway. Then I unleash a trio of my own bullets.

Two miss, burying themselves in the wood of the door frame with a dry thunk. The third catches him in the bicep and spins him around like a top. The gun goes clattering out of his hand and he slides down to his ass.

I leave June on the floor and walk to stand over my brother. I could kill him like this, slaughtered on his ass like an animal.

But even now, even after everything he’s done, I won’t do that to him.

I’ll kill him eye to eye like a man.

I grab him by the collar of his shirt and force him up to his feet. “It’s over, sobrat,” I say, my voice heavy. “It’s fucking over.” I shake him like a ragdoll. “Any last words?”

I’d given my father the same privilege. So why not Adrian?

“June…” he whispers.

I shake him again, hard enough that his head clacks against the wall and his eyes go hazy. “Don’t you dare say her fucking name.”

“June, please,” Adrian continues, as if I hadn’t spoken. “That’s my child in your belly. Our daughter. For her sake… for her sake…”

“For her sake what, Adrian?” June asks tiredly, from just behind my shoulder.

“Spare me. If you love me, spare me.”

I want to cut his tongue out where he stands. But I will not do anything until I know June is ready.