Page 136 of Equilibrium
I was shaking. I was fucking powerless to stop him.
Nikolai pushed him back and as Storm’s body hit the ground, the two guards moving away from him, I couldn’t see anything else but the body of a man I loved.
I loved him and I just lost him. I thought what I felt earlier was devastating, but this... this powerlessness, this inability to move, not being able to do anything, it fucking destroyed me.
I was going to kill him. I was going to kill them all and destroy the empire they built. I was going to erase our last name from existence.
He slowly walked toward me, still holding the knife. I couldn’t fucking look at him. I couldn’t look at any of them.
Please Storm. Just get up. Just fucking get up.
But he wasn’t going to get up. The blood started spreading around him, the dark red substance the same color as my vision.
My father stood in front of me, dropping the knife at his feet. He enveloped my cheeks, and I could smell the blood on his hands—Storm’s blood.
“There, there, Ekaterina,” he cooed. “There will be other ones. I will give you another toy to play with.” He smeared Storm’s blood over my lips, over my cheek and started playing with my hair, pulling me forward. “Taste it.” He lifted the knife in front of me, grinning from ear to ear. “It tastes wonderful. The fresh kill, the fulfillment... Just taste it.”
He thought this was funny? He thought Storm was only a toy I was playing with?
No, oh no. I was going to play, but I was going to play with him.
Movement on the top of the staircase caught my attention, and when I saw Hunter and Felix with a couple of other guys, rifles in their hands, I knew that this was the end of the road for us.
This was where I would finally end this story.
“Ah, Papa.” I smiled, licking the blood he smeared on my lips. “You know how much I always loved to play.”
As the first shot echoed through the room, I jumped up, hitting him in his chest and pulling the guards backward. I could see shock and confusion on my father’s face, but as I fell to the ground, taking the guards with me, I quickly pulled the knife out of my boot, stabbing the first one in his stomach.
Before the other one could recover, I pulled myself up and dragged the knife over his throat.
My father pulled himself up and started heading toward the billiard room, but I wasn’t going to let him go. No, this time he was going to pay for everything he ever did.
My father’s soldiers were slowly falling and I could see Felix with several other guys taking them down one by one.
I pushed myself up, and just before he could exit from the room, I ran after my father and pulled him back in, holding him by the neck.
I pressed my chest to his back, placing the knife at his throat.
“Not so fast, Papa.” I mocked him, “Did you really think I would let you escape?”
“Don’t be hasty now, Ekaterina.” A nervous chuckle escaped him.
“That’s not my fucking name, you piece of shit.” I pressed the knife harder, and the first rivulets of blood seeped from his throat. I held his hair with one hand and started turning him around to where Storm laid.
“Do you see that man?” I kicked his knees, pushing him to the ground. “He is a bigger man than you will ever be, and you tried to take him away from me. I don’t want a toy, I want him.”
“Let’s talk about this, O—”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” I stopped him. “This is where you’ll die, old man.” I moved to his front. “I will destroy the Syndicate. No one will ever know that you even existed.” I sneered at him. “The name Aster will be forever lost.”
His eyes widened and I knew I’d hit a nerve.
“You can’t do that,” he whispered.
“Oh, I can. And I will. I would say that you can watch me do it from the other side, but we both know that where you’re going, you won’t be able to.”
“I am your father!” he spat out. “You can’t do this to me. You would betray your family for him?”
