Page 83 of His Ruin
“What?” He snips, shuffling through his expense reports for the month.
I walk forward, slamming the bag down on his desk.
His eyes flicker between me and the leather before he sets everything aside and rips the zipper open. He scowls at the decapitated head of the Sokolov namesake, his lip curling. “Quit bringing me fucking heads in a bag, Kaden.”
I suck my teeth, grabbing the tuffs of gray hair before yanking the face into view. “You didn’t even see who it was.”
Ivan sits back in his chair, rubbing a finger across his mouth. “Huh. You did it…”
I shake the head, making blood drip. “Only took me three years, but the Sokolov crime family is no more.”
“Good work,” he praises before sliding his paperwork back in front of him and bending over it.
I slap a hand over the reports, blocking his view as I taint the logs with bloodied fingers.
“Seriously?“ Ivan groans.
I lean closer to him. “Have you forgotten our deal?”
His eyes snap to mine. “No, I haven’t.“ He eases back in his chair, crossing an ankle over his knee. “What would you like? More money? Maybe another vacation home you refuse to visit? An endless supply of whiskey so you can continue to drink yourself into oblivion? Running out of options here…”
My teeth grind before a humorless smile forms, and my eyes crease. “Funny. You know what I want.”
Ivan stares at me for a heavy beat. “No.”
My head tilts as my eyes round in audacity. “No?”
“No,” he reiterated slowly. “I don’t deal with the flesh market, Kaden. I can’t give you a person.”
I drop the head, straightening my spine. “I’m notaskingyou to give her to me. I’maskingyou to make her stay.”
Something akin to contemplation crosses his eyes. He stares into me, breaking me down to the very fibers of my being. “And what makes you think she’ll go with you to begin with, hmm? It’s been six years.”
That deathly calm washes over me as my eyes become half-fiddled. When I speak, it’s finite and laced with conviction. “She won’t have a choice.”
He runs a hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That’s going to make her hate you—”
“I don’t give a fuck if she hates me!” I cut him off, jabbing a finger into my chest as my eyes become wild and manic. “I haven’t spent the last six years, no contact as you requested, to be denied the only person I fucking want.”
Ivan’s glare turns cold. “She’s healed, Kaden. Why would you destroy all of her progress?”
I lean in close, leveling our noses. “Because,“ I whisper low, my voice splintering. “Her healing was built on a lie, and we both know that.”
Ivan doesn’t flinch. It’s the one thing I can’t stand about him—the calculation and restraint. He’s always three steps ahead, burying bodies I haven’t even created yet. “You staying away wasn’t a lie,” he says evenly. “It wasmercy.”
A sharp laugh rips from me, humorless and dry. “Mercy?“ I echo. “You call ripping me out of her lifemercy?”
“I call itsurvival,“ Ivan snaps, baring his teeth at me. “For her and her alone. Without my decision, she wouldn’t be here today.”
My jaw tightens so roughly that I can feel my pulse pounding in my throat. “For six years,“ I grind out, “I have done everything you’ve asked of me. I’ve disappeared, wiped my whole existence from this fucking rock. Wiped the lives of faceless men all for the sake of your cause. I let her believe Iabandonedher—“
“Because you did, Kaden!” He shouts, slamming a fist down on the desk. “I gave you every fucking opportunity to back down, and you couldn’t think past your own obsession with death long enough to see the broken woman you were going to leave behind!”
I screw my eyes shut tightly, the pain still as fresh as the very first time I felt it all those years ago. “Stop—”
“Youruinedher!“ He snarls. “She was left to pick up the fucking pieces you shattered along the way—”
“STOP!” I shout breathlessly, my lips pulling over my teeth as the agony becomes too deep—unbearable. “I fucked up, and I know that! You don’t think it keeps me awake at night?” I suck in, trying to get air into my lungs as the weight of my mistakes smothers me. “You don’t think I haven’t spent every fucking moment since that night reimagining how different my life would be today if I hadn’t killed your father?”
