Chapter 267 Die today
Chapter 267 Die today
TW: Violence. Slight mention of Abse
Something in me went quiet and molten all at once, a fury so absolute it left no room for the fear that should have swallowed me whole.
I thought of Lila’s small hands, her laugh, the life this man had tried to auction away like she was nothing but inventory, and I hated him with a purity I didn’t know I was capable of.
But underneath the hatred sat something colder still — the understanding that he meant every word, that he’d have gone through with all of it without a flicker of hesitation, and that he might still.
“Why didn’t you just kill me, Nicolai?” I asked, my voice steadier than I felt, steadier than I had any right to feel. “You’d have saved yourself the trouble of fighting your own son over me.”
He laughed, a wild, unhinged sound that scraped against my nerves. “I should have. I tried. Several times.” His eyes glazed with something between amusement and old, festering anger. “But Fabian was always there, wasn’t he. Protecting you. Fighting your battles like some goddamn—” he sneered, “—like some pathetic little lapdog. Believe me, I tried to see the appeal, that was why I had you before him.. but I genuinely don’t get the hype.”
My teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached, the knife trembling faintly in my grip despite everything in me screaming to stay calm.
I took a step closer, some reckless, furious part of me daring him to do something about it, and he did, the gun went off, deafening in the small kitchen, and I dropped instinctively, my body hitting the floor before my mind even registered the sound.
“Stay the fuck back,” he snarled, breathing hard now, his composure fraying at the edges. “I’m here to kill you, Indigo, in case that wasn’t already obvious. This isn’t a toy.”
His eyes glittered with something almost gleeful. “I sent men after Lila. Very soon, you’ll hear about her death too.” He smiled, slow and cruel. “How does that sound?”
“YOU USELESS BASTARD!” The scream tore out of me before I could stop it, and I threw the knife without thinking, watching it catch him somewhere along the arm, enough to make him stagger. I lunged for the gun the second he faltered, but he was stronger, and we crashed into the counter together, grappling, the gun firing once, twice, three times, into the ceiling as we fought for control of it.
The kitchen filled with grunts and shrieks and the clatter of pans hitting the floor, my whole body screaming with the effort of not losing.
He recovered faster than I expected, his hand cracking across my face hard enough to send me stumbling back, my vision swimming for half a second.
Then he raised the gun again, leveling it at me with a terrifying kind of calm, and I froze, breath caught, every part of me bracing for the end.
The trigger clicked. Nothing. He pulled it again. Still nothing.
Our eyes met in the sudden, ringing silence, both of us frozen in the same disbelief. I didn’t wait to understand it — I bolted toward where the knife had fallen, but Nicolai was faster, his fist closing into my hair and yanking me back before I got anywhere close.
“A gun’s not going to stop me, you bitch,” he growled against my ear, his grip tightening until my scalp burned. “I’m going to gut you alive.”
“I am going to slice every part of your body and send it to Fabian,” he growled, dragging me by the hair across the passage toward the sitting room, his limp doing nothing to slow him down. “Maybe then he’ll finally see how serious I am.”
The pain was sharp, blinding, radiating from my scalp down through my neck with every yank, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing me break. I kicked, I clawed at his arm, I twisted whatever part of my body I could reach toward the walls and doorframes we passed, grabbing at anything solid enough to slow him down.
Every time I managed to hold on to something, a table leg, a doorframe, the edge of a shelf, he’d slam his fist down on my hand until the grip broke, until pain shot up my arm and a cry tore out of me before I could stop it, and then the dragging would continue.
We reached the passage leading into the sitting room, and through the haze of pain I spotted a small flower vase perched on the side table, close enough to reach. I didn’t think. I grabbed it as he pulled me past and drove it into his leg with everything I had left in me.
He howled, an ugly, guttural sound, his hand finally tearing away from my hair. “Fuck!”
I didn’t wait to see what came next, I scrambled toward the kitchen, toward the knife I’d lost earlier, my hands shaking so badly I could barely close them around the handle.
I’d just gotten my fingers around it when he caught up to me, and the blade sank into me before I even understood what had happened.
The pain arrived a half second behind the shock, and when it came, it came like fire, hot, tearing and impossible, spreading out from my side in waves that stole the air straight out of my lungs.
I convulsed, my teeth grinding together so hard I thought they might crack, my vision blurring white at the edges as he twisted the knife deeper, grinning down at me like he was watching something beautiful. “I told you you were going to die today, you bitch,”
he hissed into my face, his breath hot and rancid against my skin. “Say hi to your worthless mother in the afterlife.”
Every nerve in my body screamed at once, a pain so total it felt like it belonged to someone else, like my body had simply stopped being mine.
He tried to yank the knife free, maybe to drive it in again somewhere else, but I held on with both hands, my grip slick with my own blood, refusing to let go even as agony shot up my arms with the effort.
He frowned down at me, surprised by the resistance, pulling harder, and I held tighter, my whole body shaking from the strain of it.
Then, with the one hand I had free, trembling and barely obeying me anymore, I reached up and drove two fingers straight into his eyes.