“So, you finally admit it,” I reply, baring my teeth.
“I do. The people who matter can’t hear my confession, though. They’re all dead.”
“They are. It didn’t have to be like this.” I’m talking but looking at Natalia.
She’s terrified and shaking. Her eyes are wide with terror. There are bruises on her face that look like someone hit her. I can’t imagine that person being anyone other than my bastard brother.
“It had to be exactly like this because you shouldn’t exist,” Ivan sneers. “You should never have been born and never have been my competition. It was a disgrace. All of it. You, your whore mother, and your sister.”
“Let my wife go, Ivan.” I’m not interested in talking to him about the past. I had nothing to do with it.
I sympathize because he got a raw deal, but it doesn’t give him the right to fuck me and everybody I love over.
“No, I’m not letting her go. If you kill me, she dies,” he threatens.
“Let her go, you fucking prick. This is between you and me.”
“I don’t think so.”
Natalia’s eyes shift to the right in a suggestive way, and I catch her meaning. She’s going to move to the right to give me a clear shot.
Fuck. It’s risky. They’re too close to the edge. Much too close. This could go wrong, but it’s either that or allowing Ivan to kill her.
I decide to continue talking to him to give her the chance she needs and create my own diversion.
“Ivan, let her go!” I shout, and on realizing my words for the distraction they are, Natalia kicks Ivan hard in his shin and moves to the right.
That small window gives me a clear shot, but I only fucking manage to shoot him in his shoulder.
The impact makes him release her, and he falls over the edge, but not before pulling Natalia over with him.
She screams, and I bolt forward thinking she’s gone.
I thank God in heaven when I see her clutching a thicket of roots jutting out of the side. Ivan is just below her, holding on to more roots, and the motherfucker is tugging on her leg, trying to make her fall.
That’s not going to happen.
I raise my gun, and as he looks at me, I fire one bullet into his forehead, the same way he had my mother killed.
In an instant, he falls, his cold eyes on me, hating me with his last breath.
I rush to Natalia as she slips and lean over to reach for her. I need to get her up here fast because that root she’s holding on to is going to break free any second.
“Baby, reach up to me. Take my hand,” I call to her.
“I’m scared.”
“Don’t be scared. You have to trust me. Please trust me. Give me your hand.”
She gazes up at me with her beautiful eyes, and I try to lower myself some more. I get to a point where if I lean any further, I’ll go over the side.
“Come on, Natalia.”
She reaches up but slips, and the hope dies in her eyes.
“Thank you for coming for me. Thank you for trying to save me. I can’t do it Mikhail. I can’t reach you.”
“No, don’t you dare give up!”
