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Twenty—
“Damien?”
My feet became rooted to the spot as I held my breath and listened.
“Damien, I’m so dizzy.”
Falling to my knees, I sat Clover on the platform, holding her up in case she was weak, and forced myself to finally look at her.
My heart thundered in my ears louder than the squeals of the southbound train as I brushed the plaster and ash-covered hair away from her face. And there, staring back at me, was the living, breathing embodiment of perfection. A few more cuts, a few new bruises, but that’s part of what made her so magical. Clover was a fucking survivor.
“Hi, angel.” I forced a smile, cupping her dust-covered face in my bleeding hands. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my neck. “There are some nurses here. Does anything hurt?”
Clo touched a gash on her forehead with a wince before her eyes suddenly went wide. “Damien, I know who killed us! You’re never gonna believe it! It was—”
“Shh … I know,” I stated, taking her ice-cold hands in mine.
Her face fell, eyebrows furrowed.
“What?” She shook her head. “You know?”
I nodded.
“Saoirse.”
I nodded again. “I’m so fucking sorry, Clo. I should have told you. I just … didn’t want it to be true.” I kissed her knuckles as I prepared myself to admit what I’d been running from.
“It’s all my fault. All of it—our deaths, my mother’s death, your family’s deaths, this entire fucking war. If I’d been stronger, if I’d slit his fucking throat when I had the chance instead of killing myself out of grief, none of this would have happened.”
Clover opened her mouth to argue with me, but I lifted a bloody fingertip to silence her.
“I was planning on running from him again, finding a place to hide again, but that was what I had done last time, Clo, and it didn’t fucking work. I’d still lost you, and when I found your body in that rubble just now …” I shook my head, trying to forget the way her limp body had felt in my arms. “I have to do things differently this time. Like you said in your letter, I have to set things right.”
“But … how?” Clover asked, clasping my raised hand in both of hers.
“By killing Alexi Abramov.”
She coughed. “That’s … that’s impossible. He’s all the way in Russia. No one can get anywhere near him.”
“I can.”
“Damien, just because you’re in the military—”
“Not because I’m in the military.” I sighed. “Because I’m his son.”
CHAPTER 40
CLOVER
“Because I’m his son.”
My mind raced through every conversation I’d had with Damien in the few short days that we’d known each other. Not once had he mentioned that his father was the bleeding president of Russia.
“You said your last name was Hughes.”
“My mother gave me her last name when I was born. She never told me who my father was, and she never told Alexi that he had a son either. Not until she got so desperate for money that she decided to contact him to ask for child support. That was the last thing she ever did. As soon as he found out that he had an heir, he sent his men to kill her and kidnap me. I’ve been his prisoner ever since.”
I was staring into the steely eyes of a hardened killer, but all I saw was the wild-haired fairy prince who’d kept me company in the shadows after my own ma passed. I almost reached out to brush a phantom black curl behind his ear. I’d had no idea what horrors that boy was going to face when he got older. That maybe his home wasn’t the otherworld. Maybe it was a living hell, just like mine.
