Page 191 of Only for Him

Well, I’m wondering that about a few different things, actually. All, now, have become equally life-threatening.

I want to force Roman to tell me what Afanasy meant, but I think I already know.

In Afanasy’s world, debts are rarely ever repaid in full—and grudges don’t die, they evolve.

I rise and move to the window, fingers brushing against the cold glass. Outside, the world moves on, a blur of lives untouched by our decisions. People returning to empty apartments, or picking up their kids from a slumber party, or hungover and going to get something with electrolytes from the bodega.

Meanwhile, I’m sinking.

What is victory, if all it buys you is a front-row seat to the next war?

“Giselle,” Roman murmurs. “Don’t let him get to you.”

I sigh and return to his side. He’s right. I need to count my blessings. We killed Pavel. Roman lived. I still get to hear him say my name.

“Is that an order?” I ask, brushing hair from his forehead. My fingers barely graze his skin, because any more and I’ll climb into that bed and show him just how fucking grateful I am that he’s still breathing. Something feral and dark sparks in his eyes.

But he needs to heal before I let myself need anything more than this.

“Do you want it to be?” Roman asks, eyes clear and piercing as ever. He grabs my hand, his warmth sending a jolt through me.

Because I’m still alive, too.

“Maybe,” I say. “Not letting things get to me isn’t exactly in my nature, if you haven’t figured that out yet.”

He’s figured out everything about you, Giselle. He’s figured out things about you that you still don’t know. That’s who he is. That’s why you love him.

Truth comes creeping back: the fear of loss, the jagged shards of affection threatening to slip through my fingers.

What if I’m different now, with Serena avenged? What if the things he admired about me are gone?

What if I become just an empty shell—one of those sidewalk people, rushing to go nowhere because they have nowhere to go?

Will Roman still feel how he feels about me if I can’t help him with the next body?

“What’s next?” I finally ask, my heart racing as the words form in the air.

“We take a breath, find out what’s left,” he replies. “Then we face whatever comes.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I say, my heart racing.

“I know, little viper,” he says.

Roman’s gaze locks with mine, pools of stormy blue. They hold a violence that I know won’t go away just because Pavel is dead. They also hold a longing I’ve come to know as well as my own fist.

I feel it right now, high in my chest, thick and aching. We’re suspended in something fragile, and if we breathe wrong, it might shatter.

“It feels like we’ve been fighting forever,” I confess, a bitter sweetness coating the words. Every ghost, good and bad, flickers through my mind: Serena’s laughter, Ivan’s hands, Dakota’s innocence, Russo’s slumped body.

Everything that has brought us to this room is dark and twisted, yet I don’t want to be anywhere else and I wouldn’t change anything about what I’ve found with Roman.

“It does,” he agrees, his voice low and worn. “But that’s not all we’ve been doing.”

“No,” I say with a shaky chuckle. “It’s not.”

I try to smile, but it falters. The air around us tightens, charged with something heavy and inevitable.

“Little viper,” he says, searching my face for an answer. “If your gun had misfired, if Pavel had gotten to you?—”