Page 95 of Gilded Shackles
“Nikolai.” I hear the calm. He’s not afraid of me. He doesn’t think I’ll pull the trigger.
I know I will.
"I'm sorry." My voice is tight, dry. "You need to come with me."
"You pointing that thing at me for show, or are you serious? Because if you are, do it fast. My men are watching."
"I don't want to do this. But I don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice." He says it like he's reading a fortune cookie. "Put the gun down."
"She has Elle." It rips out of me. "Gayle. She took her. Threw her in front of me like garbage. Told me I can get her back if I bring your corpse to her doorstep."
Viktor's face tightens.
"She wants you dead. And if I don't do it, she sells Elle to Egor." I swallow. "And the baby. My baby."
That's the first time I say it out loud. It feels like swallowing glass. My hand lowers an inch. And then right back up. My baby. My wife. Mine.
Viktor stares at me.
I stare back at him. The man who raised me when there was no one left. Who showed up at my shithole apartment with Pasha's first real crib and never once made me feel like a failure for needing it.
The gun shakes.
"I made peace with it. For her."
"I know." Another step. Close enough now that the gun is almost at his chest. "That's the most terrifying thing you've ever told me. And I've watched you do terrible things."
"I'd have lived with it."
He nods in understanding and then gestures with his hand.
"Sit down." He walks into the living room like we're about to have tea. "You're soaked and shaking like a junkie. Sit before you pass out and accidentally shoot me."
I don't sit. I follow him in, gun still aimed, still wild, pacing like a caged animal. I can't calm down. I'm seconds from doing something I can't undo.
Viktor lowers himself into his armchair.
"Tell me everything."
I do. All of it. The shopping trip. Gayle's call. The ultimatum. The sound of Elle's knees hitting marble. The gun at her head.
I don't cry. But it feels close.
When I finish, Viktor nods slowly. Then he looks me in the eye.
"You were really going to shoot me?"
He doesn't sound offended. Just hurt. And hearing that, seeing the love in his face, it nearly cracks me in two. Shame fills my chest like drowning.
"I would've done it," I mutter. "I would've lived with it."
"If you'd pulled that trigger, you wouldn't have lived at all." His voice is steady. "My men would've killed you before my body hit the floor. And then what? Elle dies. Baby dies. Gayle wins. Is that the story you want?"
I clench my jaw.
"I didn't know what else to do."
