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I caught only fragments of his threat.

But it was a threat. It was laced with so much darkness and cruelty that fear began to coil in my stomach.

More heated words followed, mostly indistinct. Then their voices rose, and something in their movement told me they were heading my way.

“You have one week,” Aleksandr said.

Fuck.

I couldn’t stay here.

I backed away from the doorway and walked down the hall as though I hadn't heard a thing, and at the end of the corridor, I turned right.

Just as Severin and Aleksandr emerged into the main hallway.

But I was fairly certain neither had seen me before I’d made the turn.

I quickened my pace and just when I thought I'd put enough distance between us, a door on my left flew open, and someone yanked me inside.

Severin seized my wrist and shoved me against the wall opposite the door, his other hand closing around my throat.

The impact knocked all the wind out of me, and for a moment I could only struggle to catch my breath.

Severin’s face was flushed, and his veins bulged out at his temples. His fingers dug painfully into my wrist, though the hand at my throat had a much lighter touch.

I’d never seen him this angry—this unmoored.

He was losing control.

“Why the fuck are you here?” he snarled.

“I… I…” I stammered.

“Why?”

His grip tightened around both my neck and my wrists.

“You’re hurting me, Severin,” I whispered. “And you’re scaring me.”

His throat worked, and he released me and stepped back, horror flashing across his face.

“You need to get out and never come back.” Malice dripped from his words like blood from a butcher’s knife.

“What?” I braced my hands against the wall behind me, the molding digging into my palms.

“Get the fuck out. I never want to see you again.”

“Severin?” My voice broke. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t want to be with you anymore. In fact, I want nothing to do with you.” He turned away, paced to the opposite wall, and drove his fist into it. “I don’t love you and I never will. You were fun while it lasted. A good fuck. But now I’m going to marry an Irish mafia princess who will be everything you’re not.”

My heart was made of glass, and he'd just exploded, shattering into a million pieces.

“You are no longer valuable to me, Xeniya Morozova.”

A sob ripped from my lips. Every muscle, every tendon, every cell in my body ached. It felt like I was slowly dying one cell at a time, one atom at a time.

Piece by piece, until nothing remained.