Page 173 of Only for Him

He’s rounding the corner. He fires, misses, and I rush him.

We crash to the floor, locked in a brutal spasm of limbs. The gun goes off again, the shot chewing into the exposed brick by the door.

I bring my knee up, jam it down into his groin. I grab his wrist in both hands, forcing it to the ground, bone cracking against hardwood as his grip on the gun loosens but doesn’t give up.

I head-butt him and his nose crunches. The taste of copper and sweat and something sour fills my mouth. The gun is pressed between us, his breath hot and rotten.

“Tell Pavel to go fuck himself,” I snarl. The gun fires again into the ceiling, and I think of my upstairs neighbors’ grandkids who sometimes come to visit. That split-second of distraction is all it takes. He rolls me over and I know I’m fucked.

“I won’t betray him,” I say, panting. “So you might as well kill me.”

He brings the gun to my temple, presses it there, and I remember Roman doing the same fucking thing. Holding the gun to his own head, telling me to shoot him.

Is he going to be the last thing I think of before I die?

He is, and that’s okay.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

But the gunshot never comes.

Something else does.

This time, when I smell Roman, it’s not a memory.

It’s real.

The weight on top of me heaves away with a grunt.

“Get off her,” Roman’s voice roars over the ringing in my ears.

He’s here. He’s really fucking here.

Roman is all muscle and violence and hate as he slams the man face-first into the counter. Bone bounces off the tile, blood spattering up the cabinets, gun clattering to the floor.

“You thought you could fucking touch her?” Roman roars, grabbing him by the neck and dragging him into the living room. I crawl after, gasping, watching through the haze.

“You were wrong,” Roman growls. “No onetouches her.No one.”

The man swings, Roman catches his wrist, bends it backwards until the bone snaps. Roman knees him in the face, once, twice. He throws the man onto the coffee table, which shatters under the impact.

The man is gasping, but Roman keeps going—punching, choking, battering him until the body goes limp. And with every blow, he keeps saying the same thing over and over.

“She’s mine!”

The apartment is silent again, except for my ragged breathing and the drip of blood onto the floor.

Roman stands over the corpse. Blood runs down his hands, soaks the front of his shirt. He turns to me, eyes wide, feral. His whole body shakes—not from exhaustion but from the violence still burning in his veins.

He crosses the room in two steps, grabs my face in both hands. His touch is rough, desperate, but terrifyingly gentle. A tenderness I don’t deserve.

“Are you hurt?” he growls, voice raw.

“It’s nothing,” I rasp, even though my ears haven’t stopped ringing and my ribs ache. “You came.”

He pulls me into him, crushing me against his chest so tight I can’t breathe. His heart hammers against my ear. I want to melt into him, burn up in his heat.

“Fuck, little viper,” he says. There’s anger in it, but also guilt. “Of course I did. I always will.”