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Igor looks up at Kirill, and a flash of pure hatred beams from his narrow-eyed gaze, but he does it. He pants like a fucking dog.
“Lift your front paws up like a good boy. Kneel up.” Kirill laughs.
Igor does it. He raises up, hands in the air like paws, and Kirill smiles slowly.
“Good little doggy.”
Then he pulls the trigger, the crack echoing through the trees. Birds burst from branches and take off into the sky. The bullet hits Igor right between the eyes. His mouth falls open as if in shock, but no sound comes out, and he falls to the ground.
Behind us, the crackle of flames grows increasingly louder. The cabin is burning. Good fucking riddance.
“Drag him to the cabin and burn him,” I order the men. I turn to my friend. “Kirill, you did it,” I say. “He’s dead.”
“I know. Don’t fucking patronize me.”
I swallow down my anger at his hostility because this is not the time or the place. I simply nod.
“Come on,” I say quietly. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter 17
Mackenzie
I’ve killed a man.
For real this time.
I saw his brain explode all over a wall, and there’s no way I’m mistaken.
I’m sitting in the back of one of the Range Rovers that was parked a short distance from the cabin. Tino is driving, and Kirill is in the passenger seat. Dom is beside me, holding my hand. He’s still bare-chested because I’m wearing his shirt over this hideous wedding dress. I know it has spots of blood on it, but I’m trying not to look. Maybe I should have picked up my clothes and left the dress to burn with the cabin, but I hadn’t even been thinking about what I was wearing. Besides, it would have meant going back in to retrieve my sweatpants, and I wasn’t going to do that either.
I twist my body and peer out of the rear window. Through the trees, a curling cloud of thick smoke reaches into the blue sky. Someone will report the fire soon, but by the time the services reach it, there will be nothing of the cabin left. I hope it doesn’t spread, but there’s no wind today, so luck might be on our side, for that, at least.
Dom squeezes my fingers, and I turn back to face the front. There’s no point in looking back now. It’s done.
I stare at the part of Kirill’s blond head that’s visible on one side of the seat. He has his fingers pressed to his temple, his elbow resting on the door. It’s as though the weight of the world is on his shoulders, even though we’re free.
Does Kirill know I’m the one who shot his dad? I gave him the watch, but was that enough?
I can’t bring myself to say the words, ‘I shot your father.’ Will he hate me for it? Resent me for not letting him pull the trigger? The man was an evil son of a bitch, but he was still Kirill’s dad, and there’s got to be a lot of complicated shit that goes with him being dead.
Who will take over his family name? Will Kirill be expected to return to Russia to step into his father’s place? The thought of him leaving knots me up inside. We can’t have gone through all of this only to end up apart.
This drive feels like the one I did with my mom when we left for Verona Falls. I’d been in shock then after Paxton tried to rape me and what I did to him. This is the same, except now I have my guys surrounding me, giving me their support, the way I will support them. Judging from his body language and his pale face, Kirill might need the buttress of us, this crazy but beautiful group, more than I do.
I still find myself going back to what my mom said to me in the car that day, how the only way I’d make it through this was by burying my emotions and trauma deep inside. Fake it until you make it, by keeping my chin lifted, and making my way through the world as if nothing has happened.
Only this time it’s not the other students I’m hiding what happened from—it’s her. I don’t want my mom to find out what I went through in that cage. I don’t want her to know I was degraded and assaulted. I can’t stand to see the pity in her eyes, and, truthfully, the memory fills me with shame. The thought of going back over it all is too much.
I’m sure she and Nataniele will be desperate to know what happened at the cabin, but all they really need to be aware of is that Grigoriy and his men are dead, and we’re safe.
I’m so exhausted that I drift off against Dom’s shoulder. When I come awake again, it’s to the stopping of the vehicle. I lift my head and see we’re back at Verona Falls, except we’re not at the grand front entrance, but instead around the back.
People are waiting for us.
I spot my mom standing next to Nataniele. Her hand is covering her mouth, and, as I open the door to climb out, she leaves Nataniele’s side and rushes toward me.
“Oh, my God, Mackenzie.”
