Page 59 of Only for Him (Starkov Bratva #1)

ROMAN

The safehouse looms in front of us, a dark promise under the cold gaze of streetlights. It stares back at me like it knows what I’ve come to do.

My heart pounds—a heavy, relentless drumbeat echoing every sin, every failure, every name I should have avenged by now. Revenge curls around my spine like smoke, whispering sweetly in my ear.

But the truth is, I need Giselle more than I need this. Our future is fragile, blood-soaked threads braided together.

If watching Pavel die takes even an ounce of hurt out of her, it’ll be worth it.

And I know, if I give her this, she’ll never walk away.

But when we reach the door, I stop. Giselle’s presence behind me is steady and certain. I lock eyes with her once more.

“No matter what happens, you keep yourself safe,” I order.

“Roman—”

“No,” I hiss, frustration rising in my chest. This is not the time for her to defy me. “You’re walking out of this building alive and unharmed, no matter what. Understood?”

“Okay,” she rolls her eyes and I can’t fight a little smile. I expect nothing less from her. “I promise to let you kill Pavel, and I promise to keep myself safe.”

I push open the door, the hinges creaking like bones. The darkness inside swallows us whole.

A narrow beam of moonlight slips through a cracked window, casting eerie shadows along the walls. My senses are heightened. I can taste the tension and hear whispers of danger curling around me.

Giselle stays close. I feel her behind me like a second pulse. Steady. Ready. My little viper, poised to strike.

We slip down the hallway, boots silent against old wood. Then: I hear it. Voices. Close.

I throw out a hand to stop her. Two bodyguards. One room over.

The first guard barely has time to react before I’m on him. My arm snaps around his throat, dragging him backward into the dark. His struggles fade as I squeeze tighter.

Crack .

His neck gives under my grip like dry wood.

The other guard turns at the sound, hand flying to his hip. Too late. I’m on him too.

The scuffle is fast and brutal. Instinct takes over as I save my adrenaline for Pavel. The gun clatters to the floor and I shove him against the wall. A fist to his gut puts him on his knees, and then I start kicking his face in.

He crumples, and I leave him behind, panting.

Giselle.

She steps forward as if reading my mind, her eyes firelight in the dark. She’s ready. Brave. So fucking beautiful it hurts.

And I almost grab her. Almost tell her to run while she still has the chance.

Because right at that moment, Pavel’s laugh echoes from down the hall.

The sound tunnels through me like a bullet to the spine.

My grip tightens around the knife at my side.

Adrenaline is a cold fire in my veins, igniting every rage-fueled thought that has been building ever since I heard him laugh like that in Chechnya.

He laughed like that once, and then after that, Anastasia screamed.

My mind is a void where atrocities drift by like smoke.

At the door, my hand closes around the knob. This has been a long time coming.

And now that it’s here…

“Roman.” Giselle’s voice is low, a sharp reminder to stay focused. Her hand is steady on my arm, and I relish the warmth even as my thoughts spiral.

I nod, my nerves tinted with fear for her, and gratitude that she’s here.

I always pictured myself doing this alone.

But she would never let me

I open the door.

Pavel Starkov waits inside, perched on the edge of the bed like it’s a throne, a chilling grin stretching across his face.

It’s the smile of a man who knows he’s gotten under your skin, who relishes the game he plays.

“I didn’t think you had it in you to show up,” he taunts in Russian, each syllable a jagged edge.

I step forward, placing myself between him and Giselle, my body a shield I’ll gladly use to block every ounce of the hell he wants to unleash.

The rage in my chest is deafening, my pulse a war drum.

“You never knew what I had in me,” I say. “And it’s the last mistake you’ll ever make.”

“I’m glad it’s me who gets to end your pitiful existence once and for all,” he says. He leans back, arrogance draping him like a cloak. “Wish my father was here to see it. I guess you’ll just have to tell him about it when you two meet in hell.”

“You’re going to pay for what you did to her,” I growl, fingers curling around the hilt of my knife. “To all of them.”

“Oh, come now, Romochka,” he says, grinning that sickle-moon smile. “You know your whore was glad to die for me.”

Anastasia’s face explodes behind my eyes: her laughter, her warmth, the way she breathed life into my very soul.

Suddenly, I’m back in that room in that prison, and he’s laughing as he destroys the one thing I love, and she’s pleading with me to save her, and I can’t.

I can’t save her. I want to die because I can’t save her, only watch as he takes her apart, piece by piece. The knot in my gut tightens, and all I know is murder.

“And you even brought me a little treat,” Pavel says, eyes shining as he rises from the bed. Giselle’s breath hitches. “Detective, I was sad that you refused my offer. I’m afraid it’s off the table now.”

“Fuck you,” Giselle’s voice spits from over my shoulder, and I feel a bloom of pride.

Anastasia chose me, and Pavel never forgave it. And now—another woman stands at my side. Another woman who rejected him for me.

His gaze hardens, that twisted mind calculating with every heartbeat as we begin to circle each other.

“You should have stayed dead,” he sneers, blade flashing as he pulls it from his waistband. “You’re just a coward who lost everything.”

No. I didn’t lose anything.

It was fucking stolen from me.

And the sickest part?

Anastasia’s life didn’t matter more just because I loved her.

Every woman Pavel’s empire chewed up and spit out deserved better. Every life he broke was sacred, whether or not it belonged to me.

Like Serena. Like Dakota. Like Rosa.

My entire being ignites with a burning rage. I’m not the boy he locked in a cage. I’m not the ghost he thought would stay buried.

I’m a fucking reckoning.

“I’m going to make you regret every last dollar you made off flesh.” My blade glints in the dim light. A promise.

Pavel chuckles—low, gutteral, delighted.

“You’re going to die screaming,” he says. “Just like she did.”

I lunge.

The knife slices through the air between us, a silver flash aimed at the heart of every ruined life. He dodges, fluid and practiced.

“Slower than I remember,” he says. “Staying in prison would have been good for you, maybe.”

He strikes, blade arcing toward me like lightning. I block, but the force of it throws me off balance. I stagger backward.

And I see Giselle. Beautiful, poised to attack, ready to do anything to protect what is left of us but determined to keep that promise.

The earrings glint in her ears.

Her sister, another victim.

I see Serena’s face superimposed over Anastasia’s.

He reduced them to nothing. Just collateral. Just casualties of his greed.

But when they died, they took parts of the world with them.

I adjust my stance, breath tight in my lungs, knife ready.

He grins again—that smug, self-satisfied curl that says he thinks this is still a game.

Let him grin.

He won’t have a mouth left to smile with soon.

“You can’t save her, Roman. You can only die alongside the women stupid enough to love you.”

A red-rage eclipse descends on the room. A cacophony of shrieking memories push me forward, clawing at the inside of my skull—and there’s only one way to let them out.

“You’re going to watch her suffer, Romochka,” he says, close enough now that his spit lands on my cheek.

We circle each other, two beasts caught in a death dance.

“I’m going to rip her apart, leave you alive long enough to watch it all.

You know there’s nothing I enjoy more than breaking a beautiful woman. ”

My world bleeds fire.

“You won’t lay a fucking finger on her,” I growl, teeth bared.

His knife bites deep into my arm, but I slice back before letting myself feel the pain. It catches him across the cheek, splitting skin. He grabs my wrist, twisting me into a brutal hold. Pain shoots through my shoulder.

It reminds me of her.

Of why I can’t fucking fail.

Because this—revenge, protection, penance—is the only way I know how to love.

“It’s a shame,” he says, “we could have been friends, if only you’d known your place.”

“All this,” I snap twisting free, “just because your father liked me more. That’s pathetic, Pavel.”

His face hardens, grin finally gone. He shoves me hard against the desk, impact rattling through my spine.

“Poor little Romochka,” he mocks, driving his knife toward me. “Worthless from the very start. My father pitied you.”

I roll away, but his blade grazes my abdomen and fire licks across my skin. I surge forward on instinct. Knives twist and slice as our bodies collide like thunder.

My blade finds his side, and he, snarling, grips my shoulder tightly to dig his fingers in like hooks.

His eyes burn—rage, ambition, and history—and I see it all reflected back in mine.

Back then it was Anastasia.

And now, he means to take Giselle, too.

No.

That’s where this ends.

The darkness inside me howls.

The fire catches.

And all it screams is: kill him.

But the moment twists away from me. I shift my stance, too slow. Pain lances through my side, dragging me down.

He senses it and moves in.

His blade finds home.

It sinks deep through flesh and muscle with a sick wet sound.

The breath empties from my lungs, and I stumble backward, landing hard on my spine. Pain spreads like poison through my nerves.

No.

No.

NO .

“Stay with me, Roman!” Her voice is a beacon breaking through the black.

I claw my way back from the edge, just long enough to see her rushing toward me. Gun raised. Fire in her eyes. The kind of fire people die for.

My little viper.

I think of everything I’ve wanted to give her, the love I tried to deny and couldn’t even admit aloud ready to pour out along with my blood.

If I have to die, I want to die looking at her.

Because I can’t stay forever, and Pavel’s knife at my throat feels more real than anything else.

“If you loved her, you would have never brought her here.” Pavel bends down, bloodied knife poised to finish me off. “From this moment on, she’ll never feel anything but pain.”

He means it.

He’s going to hurt her after he kills me.

I scream inside my skull. Get up. GET UP. Slit his throat. Tear his fucking heart out. Anything to keep her safe.

But I can’t. I’m slipping.

My vision smears at the edges, a tide of black creeping in. My arms won’t lift. My legs won’t listen. My body is a coffin I’m trapped inside.

Giselle storms forward, gun aimed, hands steady, eyes locked on Pavel.

A fucking force of nature.

“Drop the knife,” she commands, sharp as the blades in our hands.

Pavel spins, shock fading into amusement. “Ah! The little detective finally shows her teeth.”

I want to scream at her to run, forget me, forget everything and run. But I can only watch as she smiles like lady death herself.

“Not teeth,” she says. “Fangs.”

The gunshot shatters time and reverberates in the room. Pavel’s head snaps back in a brilliant burst of pink mist and he crumples to the floor, lifeless.

Bitter relief crashes over me, heavy and unyielding. She broke her promise. Stepped between me and the fire.

My little viper betrayed me one last time.

Thank God for that.

Blood pools warm around me, soaking through fabric, skin, memory. My life spills out in waves I can’t stop.

I think somewhere, someone is playing a piano.

I’m slipping. Fading fast.

But I don’t want to go.

Giselle rushes to my side, her hands pressing against my wound, her eyes wide with fear and frantic resolve.

“Stay with me,” she pleads, voice cracking. “Goddammit, Roman, don’t you dare die. Don’t you dare leave me here alone. I need you.”

Her words slice through the fog. I cling to them. To her. To the sound of her voice and the shape of her hands and the impossible idea that I might still deserve her.

I want to say I’m sorry. That I never meant to become another weight around her neck. That even now, my only fear isn’t death.

It’s her grief.

I want to tell her I love her.

I want her to hear it in my voice.

But there’s no voice left.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispers, one final echo before the darkness settles in and takes me away.