Page 94 of Forgotten Vows

They took out a few more men, their silencers reducing the sounds of the shots. It kept the building quiet for us to hear Raisa.

“You will never threaten me again!”

I ran. At the sound of her voice, so strong but strained, like she’d been screaming, I sprinted through the house. Luka was on my heels, shooting a couple more Petrov loyalists who stepped out to stop us.

They were dead. Down. Insignificant.

But the scene that I found once I burst into a room was anything but.

A severe shift of power was happening in here.

With Raisa standing over Konstantin, she bared her teeth and snarled at him.

I wasn’t going to interfere with this brutal, lethal confrontation. She stood over him as he lay on the floor. Blood streamed from wounds on her arms and face, but she didn’t waver. She didn’t flinch.

“You will never threaten me or my family again!” She screamed, pushing the sharp point of a fire poker at his throat. A gun was aimed at him from her other hand, the metal bloody likely from her fighting to get it from him.

“I am your family!”

She growled, shoving the fire poker more into his neck until he squirmed. “No! You ceased being my father, you ceased being my family the day you found me on campus and held a gun to me.”

I froze, riding out this wave of anger.

“Do you remember that?” She jammed the point deeper. “I do. I remember the fear when you aimed a gun at my stomach, ready to kill me and my son if I didn’t walk away from the only man worthy of my love.”

“I—”

She growled again, thrusting the gun at him like she was unhinged, barely in control. “Shut up! I won’t allow you to beg. I want you to feel that same fucking fear. I need you to experience what it’s like to look at death in your face and know you can’t survive. That’s what you did to me. You are not my family and I relish the honor of killing you now.” She released the safety on the gun. “You threatened my son. You threatened me for daring to love a man of my choice. And you threatened my real family one time too many.” She leaned lower. “Rot. In. Hell.”

With a hard push, she speared him through the throat. As he protested and squirmed, she stared him dead in the eye and brought the gun to his face. Pressing it on his forehead, she fired. “That’s for endangering my son.” Another shot. “That’s for thinking I’m worthless.” Once more, she shot him. “And that’s for making me almost lose the love of my life.”

Ever so slowly, she stood. Straightening stiffly like moving her body was a pain to endure, she rose to her full height.

No one moved.

No one spoke.

We gave her time to stare at her father, dead under her foot that remained pressed on his chest. It didn’t rise or fall.

He was dead, three times over.

I swallowed hard, proud of her, and approached.

She turned to face me, her expression blank.

“It’s done,” I said softly.

She nodded. Almost numb.

“It’s done,” I repeated.

Emil watched as I gathered Raisa in my arms and held her tightly. She would let me know what kind of comfort she’d want. Deep down, she was too good and sweet, too caring and compassionate to be a killer. Going this far to kill and seekclosure on the danger that damaged our lives, she risked some damage up there in her head and in her soul.

She was in shock, but as long as she’d let me hold her, I would walk her through this destruction and see that she survived this storm, too.

“It’s done,” she said at last.

I nodded, stroking my hand over her back.