Page 81 of Beautiful Ruin

He lets out a shuddered exhale. “It doesn’t have to end this way.”

“This was always going to end this way,” I counter.

Something shifts in his expression, then he chuckles. “I see.”

I stare at Ivan. At the blood, and the wreckage we’ve made of this study. At the man who built me and broke me.

“Goodbye, Pakhan.”

For a split second after the trigger is pulled, I hear nothing but the ringing of the shot in my ears. The recoil travels up my arm, familiar, yet the weight of it feels heavier than any shot I have ever fired.

Ivan’s body jerks, then slams back against his desk. The expression on his face is not fear or surprise, only that quiet, bitter understanding. His breath shudders out of him as a dark stain blooms on his chest. His eyes grow vacant within seconds, the final rattle of air leaving his lungs.

And then he is still.

The silence that follows is unbearable.

I stand there for a long moment, my chest rising and falling slowly as I stare down at the man who turned a starving boy from Moscow’s underground into the most feared enforcer in the Kuznetsov Bratva.

My Pakhan.

My mentor.

The closest thing I ever had to a father.

The gun lowers slowly in my hand. I expect something to happen, some violent burst of emotion to match the enormity of what I have just done. Instead there is only a hollow quiet settling inside my chest. I kneel beside the body, reaching down almost instinctively. For a second my hand hovers over Ivan’s shoulder before I lift it to close his eyes.

I force myself to stand.

This was never about revenge.

It was never about power.

Ivan would have burned Russia to the ground to become its king. He would have dragged the Iron Pact into chaos and crushed anyone who stood in his way. I knew that when I walked through this door. I knew there was only one way this would end. Still, as I take one last look at the body on the floor, the weight of it presses heavily over me.

When I finally turn for the door, I find Sofia standing there in the doorway. For a second I just stare at her, my mind struggling to reconcile the sight of her beauty against the distant gunfire and shouted orders further down the estate. The hallway light behind her casts a faint glow around her figure, and she looks exactly as angelic and untouched as the last time I saw her.

My heart squeezes painfully. The fear I have been carrying since the moment I stepped back onto the estate grounds finally loosens its grip on me.

She’s safe.

Before I can say anything, Sofia runs to me. I don’t even realize how unsteady I’ve become until my legs suddenly give out beneath me. The strength that carried me through the confrontation, and the impossible act I just committed, drains from me all at once.

My gun clatters to the floor as Sofia catches me. Her arms wrap tightly around me as I collapse against her, and the dam I’ve been holding together finally breaks. The tears come without warning, hot and bitter as they spill down my face. I press my forehead against her shoulder and hold her against me in a tight grip.

Her arms tighten around me as she rocks me gently the way someone might soothe a frightened child after a nightmare. Her fingers slide through my hair, her voice soft as she murmurs against my ear.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “I’m here.”

Tangled in Sofia’s arms like this, feeling her steady warmth and hearing the quiet reassurance in her voice, something inside me begins to settle.

The guilt will probably never leave me but the fear and the crushing dread that I might lose her too is gone. In that moment through the haze of exhaustion and heartbreak, I realize that this path and this terrible choice I never wanted to make have led me here to her.

Having Sofia here beside me makes it all worth it.

“I don’t deserve you,” I whisper.

She pulls back just enough to look at me, her hands framing my face, thumbs brushing away the tears that are still falling. “You do. You chose me when it cost you everything. That’s more than anyone has ever given me.”