Page 81 of His Ruin
Thirty minutes.
To see her—touchher again.
What does she look like now?
Did she cut her hair?
Will she slap me the moment she sees me?
Will she cry?
Has she tried to move on?
They’re questions that have played on a loop in my head since the very beginning of this journey. Every thought has led me back to her, everything I’ve done was only a stepping stone forward, and every body I’ve dropped has been all for us.
Our future is finally here, and I’m dying to get on that fucking plane.
I whistle a loud tune as I barge into the Pahkan’s office doors like I own the place. “Honey! I’m home!”
The greying man sits at his desk, his hands held together in prayer as his head remains bowed. It’s precious to see someone with a horrid past turning to God in his final hours. He’s most likely trying to repent for all he’s done, but there is no mercy for him in the afterlife.
Not for any of us.
He looks up at me through his lashes, still muttering his prayer.
I hold up a hand as I lean against the doorway. “I’ll let you finish.”
He closes his eyes tightly, stopping as he switches to English. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” I croon. “At least put up a fight.”
“I know when I’ve been cornered,” he sighs. “All these years, and it’s some young boy who’s going to deal the final blow.”
“Poetic,“ I muse before my eyes become half-lidded and dangerous. “But I don’t have time for games. Not when I’m one step closer.”
“You have wiped my whole family out,” he shakes his head.
“Fun times,” I smirk. “You should have heard your grandson after the bomb detonated. He was still alive—barely. Twenty-three years old, begging his momma to save him. Atragedy.”
“Why are you telling me this?” The Pahkan whispers, his voice croaking with his sorrow.
I push off the door, stalking closer to him as the blood of his men begins to dry on my skin. I place my hands on the top of his desk, my gun clicking against the glass. “Because,” I mutter, leaning in so close that he can smell the cigarette smoke clinging to me. “I want you to hear it the way I did.”
His breath stutters, his tightly intertwined fingers shaking with the heaviness of loss and grief.
“I want you to picture it,” I continue mockingly. “The confusion, the panic. The way he kept proclaimingit wasn’t supposed to end like this.”
Outside the office, the hallway is silent. His men are slumped where they fell—loyal to the end, which is to say, not very far.
He swallows hard. “You think this makes you powerful?”
I tilt my head. “No,” I answer honestly. “It makes methorough.”
He forces himself to meet my eyes, anger, sadness, recognition all battling in his gaze. “You could have just killed me…”
A laugh, sharp and surprising, bubbles up my throat. “And miss this? You should see your face right now.” I drag a bloodied finger across the glass of his desk, making an eerie X. “I can’t let you die quietly. Not after everything you’ve done. You don’t get to repent before you meet your demise. That’s not how this works.”
He sucks in a ragged breath, a single tear sliding down his cheek. “You’ve takeneverythingfrom me.”
