Page 157 of Only for Him

It was all a fucking lie.

He wasn’t worried about me working this case because I was in danger. He was worried because he knew it would lead back to him. All this time, he was just keeping me on a leash.

I want to rip him apart, but I can’t move.

My heart actually feels like it’s cracking open, pouring acid through my veins.

Russo’s voice cracks: “G, I was trying to protect you. I swear, I didn’twantto work with them, I didn’t have a choice?—”

“Bullshit,” Roman cuts him off. “No one forced you to be on Pavel’s payroll. And no one forced you to rape Serena.”

The scream tears through my throat so fast I barely get my hands up to catch it.

Russo winces like it hurts him.Good.

He better get used to pain, because I foresee a lot of it in his fucking future. I want to bash him into pieces. I want to carve Serena’s name into his skull.

I want to fuckingkill him.

“I didn’t know she was… and then, everything I did for you after, I did it to protect you,” Russo keeps gasping. “To make it up to you. It was just once, one time, and she—I—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Giselle.”

I saw this man as someone who loved me, cared about me, wanted me to be happy.

All along, he was just feeling guilty for raping my fucking sister.

He never saw anything special in me. He only saw me as the answer to his own fucking guilt.

And he thought he could make up for what he did to Serena by beingniceto me? By handing me promotions and compliments and nicknames and taking me under his fucking wing?

Fuck. That.

“What else?” Roman seethes in Russo’s face, grabbing one hand and putting a pair of wire-cutters to the joint of his index finger. Russo writhes but can’t get away. “Speak, or the gag goes in and your fingers come off.”

“What else do youwantme to say? I did it, okay? I’ve been working with Pavel for years. Whatever he needed. Scrubbed records, found girls, found buyers, fucking worked the events. Anything he said. You want names? Every girl I ever… ever…”

Russo looks at me, defeated.

“Why?” I ask, cold and empty. I see him asking himself the same question. By the time he reaches the answer, I’ve beat him to it.

“Because I’m weak,” he says. “Because I wanted to.”

My legs give out and I crumple to the floor, pulling my knees to my chest in the process.

I hear footsteps, and then feel Roman’s presence. First looming over me, then descending inch by inch. His heat wraps around me, like a weighted blanket that brings the world back into focus.

Except that’s not what I fucking want. I want to blur out the rest of my goddamn life.

I look up and see that he’s kneeling in front of me.

In his hand is a knife.

I stare at it. Nothing is really computing. All the stimuli coming in through my senses, none of it solving the equation in front of me.

“Finish it, little viper,” Roman coaxes. “This is what you wanted. This is what you’ve been fighting for. Close the circle.”

He wants me to kill Russo.

Russo.Captain fucking Russo. My fucking mentor, my goddamnfriend,my sister’s fuckingrapist.