Page 49 of Devil’s Night (The Shadows of Darkness Universe #3)

“This is a hostile takeover!” Roman’s voice booms over the confusion. “Drop your weapons and live. Raise them, and you won’t.”

Some guards falter. Some shift toward cover.

Others, fools, move to draw.

Three more shots ring out, clean and synchronized. Ana again. She’s not missing. Not tonight. One falls by the wine table, another near the stairs, another half-raised his gun before his kneecap shattered beneath him.

Echo reaches back for me and pulls me in tight to his side, eyes scanning like a machine. “Stay with me. Do not hesitate. Shoot anyone who touches you.”

“I won’t be the one hesitating,” I reply, voice low and steel-edged as I lift my skirt and draw the pistol from its thigh holster.

All around us, the ballroom is descending into calculated chaos. The survivors flee toward the exits, only to be met by Catalyst operatives storming the doors from the outside. Silencers, stun rounds, and red gas. It’s like watching a machine devour itself.

And I don’t look away.

I won’t .

Because I was raised inside this house. I know the walls, the secrets, the ghosts and tonight, I’m helping tear them apart, brick by gilded brick.

“Katya,” Echo says, tugging my arm. “We move now. We’re going for your father.”

“Where?”

He looks at me, voice cool and final.

“The panic room.”

Of course he would have one.

Dimitri Romanov always assumed the world might one day turn on him.

He just never imagined it would be his daughter leading the charge.

The air inside the panic room feels heavier than the rest of the manor, as if even the walls are holding their breath.

My father is slumped against the far stone wall, coughing blood down his shirt, his pistol long forgotten on the floor.

His pride is cracked wide open now, and for the first time in my life, I see him for what he truly is.

Small. Human. Pathetic. All the bravado, the speeches, the violence, it all fades when you’re faced with your own mortality and no one left to command.

And he knows it’s coming.

That’s why he looks at me with hollow, almost pleading eyes.

Not at Echo. Not at the man who slammed him against the wall and nearly crushed his windpipe.

He looks at me .

Because he knows I’m the one who gets the final word.

Echo stands beside me, vibrating with fury, gun still drawn.

His chest rises and falls in sharp bursts, like each breath is a war he’s barely winning.

I can see the storm in his eyes, the craving to end this.

To empty a clip into the man who made me bleed.

Who carved scars into my skin and called it love.

But he doesn’t.

Not until I speak.

“Katya,” he murmurs, voice low, teeth clenched. “If you don’t want to do it… I will.”

I shake my head once, slow. Not because I don’t want to. But because I have to.

He steps back, jaw tight, and lowers the gun.

He lets me.

My heels click softly across the floor as I approach my father. Each step feels deliberate, like I’m walking across every year he stole from me. Every humiliation. Every slap. Every whisper behind closed doors that I was a disappointment. That I was broken. That I was a failed vessel.

He tries to sit up straighter, but the pain folds him in half. I stand over him, gun resting against my thigh.

“You could’ve had a daughter,” I whisper. “But you wanted a soldier. A machine. A womb.”

He grimaces, blood staining his teeth. “You were never strong enough.”

A bitter smile plays at my lips. “I was always stronger than you. You just couldn’t stand the thought of it.”

I lift the gun. He flinches.

But I don’t fire.

Not yet.

I kneel beside him, level with the man who taught me everything I should never have learned.

“You punished me for not giving you an heir,” I say softly. “You carved that punishment into my body. And now? The bloodline ends with you.”

His expression wavers. Something shifts behind his eyes, not fear. Not regret. Just the sinking realization that I was never his to control.

The gun rises.

I don’t hesitate.

One shot. Clean. Center mass.

His body jerks. Then slumps.

And that’s it.

Just like that… it’s over.

The silence that follows is suffocating. Not because I feel guilt. But because I feel free. Light. Like I’ve cut the tether that held me underwater for far too long.

I don’t cry.

I don’t collapse.

I just stare at him, heart steady, breathing even.

Behind me, Echo moves. His footsteps echo softly in the chamber as he walks toward me, not fast, not frantic. Just sure.

When he reaches me, he drops to one knee, cupping the side of my face with hands still trembling from restraint. His thumb brushes across my cheek. Not because there are tears, but because he wants to touch. To connect. To know I’m real. Here. Alive.

“I wanted to be the one,” he murmurs, voice low, wrecked. “But watching you… Katya, you were... fuck. You were everything.”

I lean into his touch, fingers curling into the lapels of his shirt.

“I needed it to be me,” I whisper. “I needed to be the one who ended him.”

“You were,” he says. “And you were magnificent.”

He leans forward and kisses me, slow and reverent. Not a kiss of dominance or hunger, but of awe. His lips press to mine like a promise. Like a prayer.

“I kept you in a cage,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to mine. “And somehow… you kept me in yours.”

A small smile ghosts across my lips.

“You saved me from the real monsters," I whisper. "You were the salvation I dreamed of."