Page 48 of Only for Him (Starkov Bratva #1)

ROMAN

The cold emptiness of my office wraps around me, a familiar embrace that feels wrong tonight. Shadows on the walls, twisting and crawling like the memories of her I’ll never be able to kill.

All the screens are on, except the ones showing her apartment.

I can’t fucking stand to see her right now.

Her face would make me sick, not because of what she did, but because of what I’ve done. I’m the one who let her get close enough to hurt me. Just like I let her close enough to knee me in the balls.

I’ve learned nothing.

This is my fault. All of it.

I pace the marble floor, fists clenched tightly at my sides, nails biting into my palms. Rosa will gloat, then she’ll forgive me.

But I don’t want Rosa’s forgiveness. I want Giselle’s.

I want her ankles crossed as she wraps her legs around me, I want her hair in my fist, I want my name on her tongue and her heart locked up safely in my own fucking chest.

I thought we could be a team, get justice together, and now all I have is this fucking ache, this thing in my gut that won’t stop squeezing.

I shove my fingers through my hair, run them over the dull stubble along my jaw, touching myself because I can’t fucking touch her. And I need to. I fucking need to.

But I can’t.

My eyes rake over my desk, littered with papers, photos, goddamn rose petals and a rapidly-disappearing bottle of vodka.

And the USB stick.

Her low, throaty laughter haunts the room. The way her eyes sparkled with our little victories, the softness in her voice when she promised me she was in this with me.

When she made me promise.

I slam my fist against the desk. Papers scatter like ash.

I had her. She was fucking mine. I know she was. There’s no way she could’ve faked it.

She wouldn’t have.

“She made her choice,” I say out loud to the empty room, but it sounds like a question. Could I trust her again? I want to, just so I can have her again.

Forever. Yes, fucking forever.

I’ve never been capable of loneliness.

Now, I’m a walking fucking apocalypse.

The night outside wraps the mansion in silence, the wind whispering about fire and fate as it hisses through the cracks. The house feels like it’s holding its breath. The whole world does.

This isn’t over.

The USB gleams like a gun, loaded with consequences. A harbinger of everything I’ve built, threatened by the woman who said she’d fight beside me.

Maybe I should have at least told Giselle what was on it. She betrayed me, but she’d never betray her sister.

If I can’t have her loyalty, I can still weaponize her grief.

She can still help me destroy the men who broke us both.

Or maybe she just deserves to know, because anyone hurt that deeply deserves to know who’s to blame.

Everything I’ve done has been to survive. So has she. She thought she had to survive me when she gave them my DNA.

I could forgive that.

But not the lies.

Every time she looked at me, it was a lie.

Every breath she took in my presence, a lie.

Every kiss, every heartbeat, every orgasm—lies, lies, all fucking lies.

I plug the USB into the port. Even that reminds me of her: how perfectly I fit between her legs. How easy it’s always been to slide inside and drug her with pleasure, make her chant my name like an acolyte and their god.

The contents load slow enough for me to brace myself, heart thumping in my chest. With each beat, her face flashes in my mind. Deep brown eyes blinking up at me, blood splatter marring her cheek, and her bottom lip disappearing between her teeth only for my thumb to tug it free.

Finally, the files load.

A name leaps from the screen, burning into the monitor like a curse.

The person tied to Pavel, who made all this possible.

The one Giselle’s been chasing in the dark.

Some part of me recoils. Not out of fear, but out of instinct to protect her.

This is the raw truth, the hot, beating vulnerability right at the heart of everything: even now, whatever happens to her—happens to me.

Afanasy was wrong. This won’t be a test of Giselle’s loyalty.

It’s a goddamn reckoning.

We’re staring down the same gun barrel, and I’ll finally find out if she pulls the trigger with me…

or at me.

“Fuck,” I whisper, standing before the monitors as they flash chaotic snippets of security feeds.

Everywhere but the place I most want to be, and fear I’ll never be able to return to.

Closing my eyes, I envision the moment I left her, pain glistening in her eyes. I think I heard her scream, like I’d torn something out of her.

Maybe I did. But so did she.

Each option before me plays out like a double-edged sword, drawing blood with every slice.

Rosa was right, but I never answered her question.

What will you do?

If Giselle chooses her badge, will I be able to let go?