Page 49 of Ruined By Sin

"It's the story I told them because I was scared. Morin threatened to kill me and tell you who I really am, but?—"

"Give me one reason I should believe that. One." Timur stalks forward, grabbing my neck with one hand, the way Morin had, except when he does it, I fear nothing. I let my shoulders relax and my jaw go slack. Even as his fingers tighten down,pressuring my pulse so it hammers in my head. "Tell me why I should believe you're being honest about my right-hand man now, after every lie you've told."

"Because I have nothing left to gain by lying." I say it boldly while not looking away from his eyes. I'm not afraid of him.

If he doesn't love me now, so be it. If he wants to send me away instead of being the man I know he is deep down, then let it be done. But I cannot—I will not—desert my family when they need me.

"You're lying to me, and you've done nothing but?—"

"Morin is playing both sides." I talk loudly enough that he stops to listen. "He's been feeding information and escalating this whole war because it profits him. He's not protecting your family, he's using it. If you let him keep going, he's going to destroy the Mirovs and then he'll turn on you next."

"You're a Mirov begging me to spare the Mirovs. That's all I'm hearing right now."

"I'm begging you to open your eyes. My cousin Baron is dead. Morin's men strapped a bomb to him and sent him into your club. My uncle saw it with his own eyes." My chest is still heaving and my hands still shaking, but I'm finding boldness I never knew I had. "Morin is using some lie cooked up that my family is attacking yours as a means to get you to kill every one of us off... And it's working. He's covering up his own ass by what he's doing."

His hand loosens, and I suck in a slow, deep breath as he asks, "And you know this how?"

"Because my uncle told me when I called him this evening."

Confessing that it was my Uncle Victor whom I had called makes him seem angry again, but he backs away, running a hand through his hair like he's trying to fight back the truth.

But one thing I've learned living this life I've come from is that truth is a lion. You never have to tell someone when a lion walks into the room.

"I love you, Timur." I don't try to reach out and touch him, though I desperately want to.

"Don't you fucking say that!" he shouts, exploding at me again. Spittle flies from his mouth as his eyes go wide and his chest puffs out.

"I will say it every day the rest of my life if I have to, because it's the one true thing about me that you will never change. No matter what sort of a monster you turn out to be." I feel myself trembling as more tears leak from my eyes.

"You may hate my family, but if you do it's because of lies that evil man fed you. And you may want revenge, but you're taking it out on the wrong people..." I swipe at my cheeks again as I say, "But I love you. And you won't change that. Not now. Not if you kill my uncle and my father. Not if you put a gun to my head. I choose it, because I know who you are."

When he leans in close, hot breath dusting my face, I think he may turn and forget this nonsense and come back to bed with me. But his eyes go black as the inky sky and his jaw clenches as he spits through his teeth, "You are a Mirov. And you disgust me."

Then he storms out, slamming the door and leaving me to stand there shaking and angry and scared.

My eyes well up over and over, even as I climb back into bed, sobbing and blubbering like a broken-hearted child.

I did my best, and I've failed. And I can only pray Victor and my father are ready when the Kuzins come. Because they're coming, and when they do, I have a feeling there will be no survivors.

23

TIMUR

Kazimir walks into my study and closes the door behind him. I called him twenty minutes ago but didn't say much, just enough that he knew to come. Now he's standing in the doorway taking stock of me. The bottle on the desk is missing a third of what it had when I opened it and I stand with my glass in my hand, staring out the window. Every time I try to sit down, I get antsy and stand back up.

I can't believe she fucking lied to me.

He parks his happy ass in the chair across from my desk and asks, "Well, how bad is it?" If anyone can sympathize with me, it's him. He has more experience with a fucking traitor than I ever wanted to have. But here I am. And there he sits.

I set my glass on the desk. "She's not a Belova."

Kazimir sighs hard through his nose, like he wants to tell me, "I told you so," but doesn't have the fucking balls to do it. He knows I'd punch him and he knows if he struck back—which he would totally nail my ass to this floor—he'd hear about it from Roman.

"Who is she?" he asks, taking my whiskey glass and refilling it. He downs it, then fills it again and pushes it toward me. As if he needs the liquid courage as much as me.

"Mirov—Victor's niece."

I watch his eyes. They tell me everything. Though his lips purse and his chest shifts as he squares his shoulders. "Tell me everything."