“You attempt to hurt what’s mine,” he said, his tone low but biting, more cutting than the barrel of a gun pressed to Viktor’s skull.
The others stayed silent. They knew what was coming. They didn’t beg. They didn’t even move. But Ruric? He was shaking like a leaf, fear gripping him like a vice, but he didn’t cry.
Misha turned his eyes to him.
“You have a sister, don’t you?” he asked, his voice deceptively soft.
Ruric blinked, confusion flashing in his eyes. “What?”
Misha leaned down, crouching until they were nearly nose to nose. “You love her, don’t you?”
Ruric nodded quickly. “Yes. More than anything.”
Misha’s face didn’t change. But I felt the shift. The tension in the air, the stillness before the blood began to spill.
“That’s how I feel about her.” Misha’s words sliced through the cold night like a sharpened knife. “She’s not just mine because of a marriage contract, or Bratva deals, or vows. She’s mine because I would burn the world to keep her safe.”
I froze.
The air around me grew thick. I could hear nothing but the thudding of my own heartbeat in my ears. Misha... the man I had come to fear, to want, was becoming something I could barely recognize.
He straightened up, giving a small nod to his men. The command was simple.
Five shots rang out in the stillness.
The men didn’t scream. They didn’t flinch. Their blood sprayed into the snow, staining the white ground a deep, darkred. The sound of it, the wet thud of bodies falling to the cold earth, echoed in my mind.
I couldn’t breathe.
I wanted to scream, to run, to do something. But my body wouldn’t obey. My mind was too full of the image of Ruric’s terrified face. The way Misha had looked at him, like he was a piece of furniture, something to be discarded.
This wasn’t just a statement. It was a warning. To everyone. To me. To Chernov. To anyone who might dare to stand against Misha.
When the shots had faded into the silence of the courtyard, Misha didn’t flinch. He didn’t pause. He didn’t even look back. He turned on his heel, his coat billowing out behind him as he walked away, his footsteps echoing in the snow.
But the dread that hung in the air wouldn’t let go. It gnawed at my chest.
And then I realized something.
For the first time since the banquet, I saw Misha for what he was becoming.
This man, this terrifying man who had claimed me, was no longer the one keeping me safe. He was destroying everything, everyone, around me. His rage wasn’t just a force of nature. It was a danger.
And I was the one in its path.
I stayed by the window, watching as the blood soaked into the snow, turning the white landscape a sickening shade of crimson. The wind picked up, biting at my skin, but it felt like nothing compared to the icy chill that gripped my heart.
It wasn’t just the Vargas Cartel or Chernov’s spies he was punishing. It was anyone who crossed him. It was me.
And with every step Misha took, every life he destroyed, he was pushing me further away.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was just one more casualty in the war he was waging.
I wasn’t sure if I could live with that.
Sleep never came to me that night.
I lay awake with the image of those five bodies haunting my mind. The way Misha’s voice had gone soft when he spoke of protecting me, like death was nothing more than an extension of love.
