Page 33 of Beautifully Damned (Sinful Fates #2)

Roman

Something acidic and unnamable coils in my gut. Rage pulses through me like a fucking tidal wave, and yet I stand still, fists curled so tight they tremble. I want to kill Lola for putting Ayla danger. But I can’t, and I won’t.

Because Lola is my future sister-in-law. Some part of me respects her for stepping in, even if it meant putting Ayla at risk. Even if I’m seeing red because of it.

I watch Ayla run, realizing that I want to go to her and wrap my arms around her. “What the fuck were you thinking?” I hiss, snapping at Lola before the words can rot on my tongue.

But before I can unload every ounce of fury I’m barely keeping in check, Mikhail moves past me and pulls her into his arms. She clings to him like he’s oxygen. Their hug is desperate and messy. I watch them like a fucking voyeur, and what I feel in that moment is so hideous I barely recognize it.

God help me, I’m jealous of my brother. Of the way Lola looks at him like he’s her entire world. Of the way she can collapse in his arms without shame. That’s what I want with Ayla. I don’t do comfort. So why the fuck does it feel like I failed Ayla?

“Everyone out!” Lola barks, pulling away from Mikhail. “Now! Sergei—get the fuck up! You too, Elena! Out!”

Elena, Sergei, and the men in the room scurry away.

“You don’t get it, do you?” I growl, stepping toward Lola, towering over her smaller frame. “You don’t ever go against the Pakhan.”

She doesn’t back down. If she were anyone else, I’d put a bullet between her lips and call it a day.

“I do now,” she says.

“You listen—”

“No. You listen,” she cuts in, chin lifting. “I’ll play by your rules, sure. I’ll kiss the damn ring if I have to, but not when it comes to Mikhail.”

“You follow orders,” I snap, blood thundering in my ears.

“Not when it’s him!” she fires back.

I can practically taste the tension, and Mikhail steps between us.

“I’m barely holding it together,” he growls. “Talk to her with respect, Roman.”

“You’re fucking whipped, Misha. You’re not thinking straight.” The words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them, and I wonder, even as I say them, whether I’m projecting. Whether I’m already that whipped and just too much of a coward to admit it.

He opens his mouth to answer, but Lola beats him to it.

“Is he?” she asks softly, stepping forward. “Or are you? You nearly got Bratva men killed because you couldn’t stand seeing her in danger.”

She looks straight through me. “You want to talk about weakness?” she whispers. “Don’t look at him. Don’t look at me.”

Just as I’m processing her words, how much truth there is in them. Everything changes in a split second. Bullets scream through the air. Again .

I yank my gun out, ready to shoot, to kill, but the bastards are already running. Cowards. A few shots and they’re gone. But not before making sure Ayla’s out of the line of fire. These sons of bitches.

And this—this is the price of one goddamn slip-up. Of keeping her around longer than I should’ve. Of not accepting the Turk’s last deal, when they already wrung themselves dry.

“Roman!” Lola’s scream splits the air. “He’s hit!”

Lola’s on the floor beside Mikhail, sobbing, inconsolable. Her hands tremble as they hover above his bloodied abdomen, not knowing where to touch, afraid to hurt him more. Mikhail’s eyes are half-lidded, skin pale.

Before this moment, I asked myself if I even loved him. I knew I cared. I knew he was mine, my blood, but love?

But watching him bleed out, I realize something brutal and terrifying—if I lose him, I’ll lose my fucking mind. I don’t know what that means. But if that isn’t love, what the hell is?

“Put pressure on it,” I bark at Lola, already dialing our emergency medical team. “Hold it down.”

She obeys instantly, hands pressing against the wound, sobs caught in her throat.

We don’t have time to risk a hospital with this kind of injury, we need our emergency crew right now.

Fifteen minutes later, they’re here.

Mikhail’s in surgery in the underground emergency unit we built beneath the estate. Lola’s on the floor, head in her hands. Every thirty minutes, Sergei comes and makes her drink water like that’ll stop her from dying of heartbreak.

I don’t leave her. It’s what my brother would want.

“You were right,” I say, eyes fixed on the wall.

She doesn’t respond.

“You did the right thing. What I couldn’t.”

“What?” she breathes, barely audible.

“I’m proud of you.” The words taste like rust. “You did what I couldn’t. I let myself have a weakness. I thought I could control it. I thought it wouldn’t cost me anything.”

Ayla. She’s the weakness. A mistake I won’t repeat. No matter how much I want to drown in that mistake and never resurface.

“It won’t happen again,” I mutter.

But my praise means nothing to Lola at this moment. She doesn’t care.

“Your brother…” Her voice breaks, before she forces the words out. “He’s all I want.”

“He’s strong,” I say roughly. “Stupidly strong.”

He’ll survive.

He has to.

Or I will burn this city to the ground and piss on its ashes.

Silence stretches between us until the doctors come back. Their expressions aren’t grim. One of them says, “It missed all the vital organs. He’s lucky. It could’ve been worse.”

Relief hits me like a hammer. The kind of relief I only remember feeling once before—when my father died.

I help Lola up, guiding her to Mikhail’s side. She rests her head on his arm and starts talking. She talks and talks, but he’s unconscious. Still, she talks like he can hear every word.

It’s too intimate for me to keep watching.

After making sure he’s stable, I leave. I let my feet lead me one last time. One final fucking time.

They take me to Ayla’s bedroom.

This is the last time I follow what the jagged stone in my chest wants.

Because next—

I’m burning her and her entire bloodline down to nothing but ash.