What a waste.
I leave the bathroom dripping wet and aimless. My stomach growls, and the thought of finding something to eat is oddly appealing. Maybe that’s what I need. To stuff myself so full that there’s no room left. I stagger over to the fridge and pull it open, scowling at the offerings inside. There’s a dubious carton of milk with a faded expiration date and a carton of eggs. I reach for them anyway, my fingers brushing the rough surface just as a telltale noise catches my ear.Click!I know it well.
“Never panic when there’s a gun pointed at your skull, Parker,”Grey used to tell me.“That’s how you get your fucking head blown off.” There is no need to turn anyway. I smell her—fear,hate,and rage. She reeks of them all, just like I do.
“You were supposed to kill him,” she says, her voice ragged and unsteady. “You said you would. You said you would do it—”
“Domi?” I almost want fate to prove me wrong this time. It’s not her. Piotr’s web isn’t really this cruel.
I risk glancing over my shoulder and find her anyway. She’s barely upright on trembling legs, fighting to hold the gun she’s pointing at me steady. Tears spill down her mascara-stained cheeks, stripping the tough outer exterior away and revealing the little girl she really is underneath. With her brilliant hair gleaming, even in the dim lighting, and those eyes…
I wonder if Piotr planted her specifically, using her appearance like a blunt reminder of everything I’ve lost. Everything his family took from me.
It stings to blink the memories back.Focus.“Domi. You don’t want to do this—”
“I believed you!” The gun sways, the barrel drifting from left to right. Her finger shakes over the trigger. Unchecked, she’ll pull it, whether on purpose or by accident.
Maybe I should let her. My fingers shake, and I’m unsure of whether to grab for her or beckon her to just do it. Kill me. Save me.
“You’ve known,” I force myself to say instead. “You know he’s back.” I’m not surprised, even as the guilty flush creeps across her cheeks.
“No one leaves Piotr.No one.” Her eyes swell with the terror sparked by those words. She’s trapped in the same hell I’ve always been in—but she’s braver than I ever was. She fights it, shaking her head to clear the memories. “He made me watch you. Stay close. I was going to kill myself before he could… For Espi—”
“Does he know?” The pain I feel at the thought nearly knocks me over.
Would Piotr really be that sadistic to use another man to feed me snippets of hope? A newer drug? The answer rings through my skull, and a part of me almost wishes it were true. It would save me the agony of succumbing to a more potent poison than him.Yes.
“No.” Domi shakes her head again. “He doesn’t know. He doesn’t deserve…” She bites her bottom lip, and more tears coat her face, falling unchecked beneath the low neckline of her sheer black top. “I wouldn’t bring him into this. I wouldn’t. But you said… I thought…”
She sways, and I know that look on her face. That grim acceptance of the inevitable.
She turns the gun on herself, pressing the barrel against her temple while her eyes seek mine out, cold and resigned. “I thought you were brave enough.”
“No!” I lunge, throwing my weight against her.
She buckles, dropping the gun. Her nails sink into my arm, ripping through flesh, as I knock the weapon from her reach and pin her to the floor by her shoulders.
“Let me go!” She kicks out, trying to dislodge me. “There’s no point. There’s no use—”
My palm burns as it connects with her cheek, stopping her mid-shout. “Enough.” I’m panting. Judging from how badly my arm’s throbbing, she drew blood. I can feel it seeping through rent flesh as I ignore the way she tenses and wrap my arms around her.
Her arms go rigid. Limp. I hold her even as her shoulders begin to heave with suppressed tears she can barely smother with her hands.
“You’re not alone.” The words aren’t mine, but stolen from a memory. Maybe they’re what Ivan told me that very first night he set me free. “You’re not alone—”
“He’ll find me.” Her body trembles with the knowledge. “He’ll kill me.”
“No.” I slowly draw back from her, already forming a plan in my head. “You’re already dead. I know someone who can make you disappear.”
“Why?” she demands, tears in her eyes. “After what I did…”
I stand, flicking loose hair away from my face with trembling fingers. “Because it’s not too late for you.” I grit my teeth to reinforce that statement. Ithasto be true. “Otherwise, there’s no hope for any of us.”
The hotel appearsdifferent in the light of day. Piotr wears darkness like a cloak, but the glow of broad daylight always seemed more painful to witness him in. Blinding.
The moment I enter the lobby, I spot at least three figures lurkingwithinthe shadows. Their posture alone betrays them as one of Piotr’s trainedsoldaty, his personal bodyguards. Either I missed them last night in my moment of nostalgia, or he purposefully hid them from me.
He’s grown paranoid in his old age, Piotr. He must have pissed off someone big this time. Someone powerful enough to drive him into the arms of a low-level Irish gangster with a lone bar to his name.
