Page 24 of Devil’s Night (The Shadows of Darkness Universe #3)

Chapter nineteen

Salvation Is Not For Sinners

Katya

H is arms cage me like a vice, but his touch is anything but harsh.

His chest rises and falls beneath mine in a slow, almost hypnotic rhythm, like I haven’t spent days choking on the chaos he breathes.

His heartbeat is steady, too steady, like none of this touches him.

Like breaking me apart was just a ritual… and now, I’m the altar he rests on.

His fingers trace my waist with the gentleness of a lover, not a captor. Lazy, languid strokes that burn hotter the longer they linger. My skin prickles under his touch, my thighs still slick from what he did to me, from how thoroughly he fucked me. Used me. Tasted me. Ruined me.

“What are you thinking?” His voice is low, each word wrapping around my throat like silk meant to strangle.

I don’t answer right away. My breath stutters, shaky and shallow. My fingertips glide across his palm, brushing over the deep grooves, the stories carved into his hands. Hands that held me down. Slapped me. Spread me open. Made me scream.

“Nothing,” I whisper. A lie. A dangerous, desperate lie. “Nothing at all.”

He hums, like he knows better. Like he’s proud of the silence he’s taught me to keep.

His fingers roam higher, dragging over the raised scars on my back. I stiffen. My nipples graze his chest, bare and aching, the friction maddening. My nose brushes his, breath mixing with the heavy tension between us, heat and hesitation fighting for dominance.

“What are you thinking, Everett?” I breathe, his real name curling around my tongue like something forbidden.

His eyes flicker. His entire body stills.

And then he cups my face, thumb ghosting across my lips, that mouth he made filthy just hours ago. His mouth hovers over mine, not kissing. Not yet. He wants me to beg for it. To need it.

“Will you really stay, Katya?” he murmurs, and the way he says my name, like he owns it, makes something deep inside me clench.

He buries his face in my chest, curls brushing my skin, his mouth dangerously close to my nipple. I feel his breath there. Hot. Measured. Claiming. My thighs instinctively squeeze tighter around his hips, like my body’s already made the decision my mind is still trying to outrun.

How am I here?

How am I this close?

Why does it feel right?

He fucked me like I was nothing. Less than nothing. Made me choke on him, ride him, cry for him. Used me until my body went limp and still kept going. And I let him.

And now… now he holds me like I’m his.

He looks so human like this. So real. But that’s the trick, isn’t it? That’s how monsters keep their prey.

I rake my fingers through his hair, tugging just hard enough to make him growl into my skin. He shifts beneath me, and I feel him, hard again. Ready. Like he hasn’t had enough of me. Like he never will.

The moment stretches, thick with heat and silence and things I’ll never say.

“Yes,” I whisper. The word slips out too easily.

It’s not a lie.

It should be, but it’s not.

I mean it.

And I don’t know why.

Why, after what he did to Isaac. After the blood. The screams. The way he made me watch.

I should hate him.

But instead, my body presses closer. My hips grind down. My breath catches. My throat burns with the need to stay.

I want him.

I want the monster.

And maybe that’s the most broken part of all.

He wraps his arms around me like he’s anchoring something untamable.

..me, maybe. Or himself. There’s no space left between us, no breath I take that doesn’t brush against his chest. His skin burns into mine, every inch of him molded to every inch of me, like we were made to fit this way. Made to collapse this way.

His chest presses against mine, his skin hot, flushed from everything we just did, from everything he took from me and everything I gave him willingly.

Our bodies are still slick with sweat, still vibrating from the echoes of what we became in those sheets.

My heartbeat pounds against his like we’re one organism, fused by lust and something far more dangerous.

Something I don’t have a name for. His breath is warm against my cheek, his scent wrapping around me like a drug.

Every inch of me is tangled in him, claimed by him.

I can still feel the ache between my thighs, the sting of where he grabbed me too hard, bit too deep, thrust too far.

And yet, even now, with my body bruised and used, all I want is more.

More of him. More of this madness. I am completely his, torn open and willingly stitched together by the hands that destroyed me.

“Will you let go?” I whisper, barely able to form the words as his lips drag over the sensitive skin of my throat, slow and possessive.

His mouth is lazy, like he’s savoring me.

Like he has no reason to rush because he knows, he owns me now.

His teeth scrape over the curve of my shoulder and I gasp, hating how my body arches into him on instinct, craving the hurt almost as much as the heat.

“No,” he breathes, the word spilling from his mouth like a sacred promise. It’s not just a refusal, it’s a binding oath. A threat. A confession. And I don’t know whether to feel safe or scared. Maybe both.

Then...

Ding-dong.

The sound slams into the room like a detonation.

We freeze. The haze of post-ecstasy fractures instantly.

My heart spikes. His eyes snap to the door.

In a single breath, everything about him shifts.

The heat drains from his body and is replaced with something colder.

Sharper. More lethal. He moves like a machine, ripping the sheets up to cover me with one hand while the other reaches for his clothes.

His mouth is drawn tight, jaw clenched, that soft look he gave me just seconds ago burned away like it never existed.

“Stay,” he snaps, and the command cuts into me with a precision that leaves no room for defiance. He’s gone.

I scramble into his clothes, tugging on a pair of his sweats that hang loose on my hips, and one of his old band tees that still smells like his skin and sex and sin.

My legs feel shaky beneath me, my body sore, raw, and somehow still wanting.

I follow him at a distance, blood roaring in my ears, drawn to the storm like a moth to the flame that’s already singed my wings.

I shouldn’t be doing this. I should hide. But I can’t stop moving toward him.

His dresser drawer is cracked open. A glint of steel catches my eye. My knife. I grab it without thinking. Without hesitation. My fingers wrap around the handle like I was meant to hold it.

I stay low in the hallway, peering through the crack in the bedroom door as Echo undoes lock after lock, four in total.

His fingers move with practiced urgency, each click echoing like the tick of a countdown.

He’s done this before. This isn’t paranoia.

This is preparation. A life lived expecting enemies. And now, they’re at his front door.

The moment he swings it open, the man standing there storms in without waiting. Tall. Broad. Drenched from the rain, with a presence that screams power. He knows Echo. Knows him well.

“Come on in, Roman,” Echo mutters dryly, but the sarcasm is forced, brittle.

“Save it,” Roman snaps, eyes raking over Echo’s appearance. The half-buttoned shirt, the flushed skin, the damp curls. My fingerprints are probably still etched into his hips. And Roman sees all of it.

Echo leans against the kitchen island, arms crossed, trying to look relaxed, but he’s already calculating.

His body is wound tight, like a trigger pulled halfway.

“What?” he says. “I take one fucking day off and now you’re breaking into my house like a jealous ex?

” He grabs his gun, places it on the counter, deliberate.

Measured. A message: This is my house. My territory. You don’t call the shots here.

“You take a day off,” Roman says, voice cold, “and Dimitri Romanov walks into Catalyst.” The name makes my stomach lurch. I stagger back a step.

Dimitri.

My father.

Echo straightens, that mocking glint in his eyes flickering out. His jaw tightens. “What did you just say?” Roman doesn’t flinch. He steps closer, his fury barely restrained.

“You heard me. Dimitri. In my office. With his men. Threatening my wife. Putting hands on Ana. In front of Noah. Wrapped their hands around her fucking throat and we couldn’t stop it.”

I see it. The exact second something inside Echo snaps. His entire body tenses like a wire pulled too tight, ready to whip back and cut something open. Then he moves—fast. Violent.

He shoves Roman, hard, sending him back a step. “Careful,” Echo growls, voice low and trembling with rage.

“No,” Roman shouts, pushing back. “You’ve been absent. Distracted. And now Dimitri’s flashing pictures, proof, Echo. Proof that you were one of the last people to see Nikolai Sokolov alive. And with Katya Romanov.”

My name slams into the room like a death sentence.

I don’t even have time to react before Echo explodes.

He lunges, hand clamping around Roman’s throat and slamming him flat on his back with the kind of force that shakes the floor. Roman chokes, gasping for air as Echo towers over him, wild-eyed and unhinged. He pins him down with one boot to his chest, hard enough to bruise.

“Do not forget who the fuck you’re talking to,” Echo hisses, voice vibrating with something primal and unstoppable. “Now tell me, what pictures did Dimitri show you?”

And all I can do is stand there, frozen.

This man, this monster, was just inside me. His breath still lingers on my skin. His cum is still dripping down my thigh. I let him hold me. I let him kiss me. I let him whisper that he wouldn’t let go.

And now he’s about to kill someone.

Because of me.

Because of us.

And the worst part?

Some twisted, broken part of me doesn’t want to stop him.

Roman’s eyes blaze as he yanks something from the inside of his jacket, his movements sharp, furious.

The sound of paper crumpling under pressure fills the space just before he throws the documents at Echo’s chest like a challenge.

Pages scatter mid-air and float down between them like ash from something already burning.

Echo catches the edge of the top sheet before it hits the floor, his eyes scanning whatever Roman has brought him.

Something in his shoulders shifts. Tension loosens, not entirely, but enough to make the air feel less suffocating for a moment.

Without looking at Roman, Echo turns on his heel and walks toward the living room, the paper held loosely in one hand like it’s already telling him something he doesn’t want to hear.

“Grab yourself a drink if you want,” he mutters, voice calm again, deceptively smooth. “Let me explain.”

Roman grunts, pushing off the floor with a hiss of pain and pride.

He brushes off his jacket, jaw tight, but he doesn’t argue.

The tension between them sizzles but doesn’t explode.

Not yet. They move like men who’ve fought before.

Men who know the rhythm of rage and when to pull back just before blood spills.

Their voices drop to low murmurs, lost in the space between kitchen and living room, and yet my heart thunders like a drum against my ribs.

I can barely hear what they’re saying, but it doesn’t matter.

I can feel what’s coming. Something worse is circling.

I feel it tightening around us like a noose.

My father is closing in. And if he’s coming for Echo, if he’s trying to get through him to me, then there’s no line he won’t cross.

No life he won’t crush beneath his boot to make a point.

I barely have time to finish the thought.

Movement, quick, sudden, and silent, catches my eye like a flash of silver in a dark room.

I freeze.

My gaze shifts away from the two men talking, my focus narrowing on the hallway just beyond the kitchen. I squint, holding my breath, my instincts screaming that something’s wrong. The hallway is dim, shadowed, but I see him.

A body.

Wrecked.

Barely standing.

Nikolai.

He’s slumped against the wall, one hand pressed against his side, the other wrapped tightly around a jagged shard of glass.

His knuckles are white from the grip, and blood trickles down his arm, staining the floor beneath him.

His face is swollen, almost unrecognizable.

One leg is heavily bandaged, the fabric soaked in red.

His shirt hangs from his body in tatters, soaked with sweat and agony.

But it’s his eyes that haunt me.

Wide. Wild. Alive.

And in his hand, draped from trembling fingers, is a single key.

My stomach drops.

His wrists are free. The shackles Echo kept him in… they’re gone.

Oh no, Echo.

My eyes dart to the dresser. The ring of keys. The one Echo always keeps close, the one that never leaves his sight, it’s missing.

I don’t even breathe.

Nikolai looks up, and our eyes meet. There’s a second, maybe less, where something passes between us. Recognition. Rage. Desperation. Then his gaze shifts past me. Past the hallway. Toward the living room.

We both see it at the same time.

Echo’s gun.

Still sitting on the kitchen island where he placed it earlier. So casual. So careless.

He didn’t see Nikolai. Neither did Roman. They’re too deep in whatever war is brewing between them to notice the storm already here.

I watch in horror as Nikolai’s fingers twitch, the glass slipping from his grip as his hand inches forward, reaching for the weapon.

My legs move before my brain does.

I don’t think. I can’t think.

There’s no time to scream. No time to weigh right or wrong. No time to call out a warning.

I lunge.

The sound that follows splits the world in half.

A single gunshot.

Louder than anything I’ve ever heard. Louder than war. Louder than pain.

And in that moment, nothing else exists but the sound of it ringing through Echo’s house like a death knell, and the certainty that everything is about to burn.