Page 37 of Refrain (Beautiful Monsters #2)

I raise the gun again, aiming the barrel somewhere over his chest. “I didn’t do it for you.”

Yes, you did. I don’t know if he murmurs those words to me or if I just imagine them. Like roaming fingers, they trickle over unseen parts of me. Only he can do this—violate my body without even trying. I hate it. I crave it…

“You don’t know how beautiful you are like this.” He lets my hair fall and steps back. Just an inch, but it’s like the difference between touching the sun and being near it. I’m still broiling beneath the heat. It’s still lethal.

“Get away from me—”

“You came to me .” He almost sounds surprised. As if I magically arrived on his doorstep unannounced. Surprised, but not alarmed. “Just like I knew— hoped —you would.”

“So that I can kill you?”

It’s a laughable concept. Piotr’s been waiting patiently for me to put a bullet in his head. So why the hell can’t I pull the trigger?

He chuckles darkly. The tone of his voice alone used to control me like a puppet on a string. I studied every cadence. How soft he could sound when I pleased him. How utterly brutal when he was angry.

Now? I can’t tell. His voice wavers when it should be steady. He’s soft when he should be terse. My heart picks up speed, sending my pulse surging through my skin. The flavor of fear is a lot more familiar. My body knows how to react to it.

I raise the gun.

Piotr smiles. “You love me,” he says, his voice a gruff rasp against my skin. “ That is what this means. Of your own volition. You came back to me, Ksei. And, when you are ready, I will reward you.”

“Bullshit.” I have to choke out another laugh. This time, the sound gets stuck in my throat. Now, it strikes me—Piotr isn’t worried because the bastard’s gone insane.

“Oh?” He releases his own chuckle and strokes his chin with his thumb. “You could have run. You know it. I know it.”

“And you would have had me arrested for murder—”

“And you could have had Ivan erase that video, had you told him about it. But you didn’t. Oh. You thought I didn’t know about your little friend.”

This is the point when I really should kill him. Concern for Ivan is like a living thing wrapped around my throat. One wrong move and I’ll suffocate .

“H-how?”

“He never was good at hiding his loyalty for your father. Even when he signed off on the order to have him killed. Good old Ivan could never shake that guilt. I always knew that he would do anything for Milo’s daughter—just as long as he could still slither within the shadows like the snake he is.”

“You knew,” I say thickly. “So why—”

“Who did you think alerted Ivan’s men that night, Ksei?” He poses the question in that commanding tone that warns me he wants a direct answer.

I’m punished by him advancing another step. When I don’t respond, his voice deepens.

“Who do you think lessened the guard patrol to allow them into my territory?”

It’s a dangerous picture he paints. It’s a maddening one. I still remember the pounding rush of clinging to life as Ivan’s men hustled me through the streets. Was he really watching them, laughing as my blood painted the earth behind me?

“You’re lying.”

“It was a gamble,” he admits coldly. “Had the bastard been even a second later, you would have died. I was too…thorough.”

I cringe when he reaches out for me. I dodge his first touch, but he comes again, trailing his thumb along the top of my forehead.

“My little beauty. Still unmatched, even while flawed.”

“You’re lying .”

“I will admit that it wasn’t easy,” he tells me while his thumb drifts down my jawline.

“Watching you all those years. How you destroyed your hair. Became a new woman. Chloe .” He scoffs at the name.

“My men were always within reach of you. Always. I could have had you back any second, but I withheld. I endured. It was a necessary pain, but it was pain nonetheless…”

I shake him off. He’s close enough now for the barrel of the gun to brush his chest directly.

The nearness of the weapon only makes his grin widen.

God, that expression… The pathetic girl I used to be would have cherished it—done anything to make it last. She would have sold her soul for a hint of his smile.

“You tried to kill me.”

“I needed to restrain myself. For you. For us. My beautiful little Ksei.” He cradles my chin in his entire palm this time.

For the love of God, I can’t move.

“I knew you were loyal. But was it love?” he asks. “Would you die for me? Live for me? Forgive me for anything—even the worst of betrayals?”

Would I?

Did I?

A burning sensation consumes my eyes. There are two of him now, laughing as I try to distinguish between them. The barrel of the gun drifts left…right. I fire and splinters fly from a sideboard across the room. I missed again.

Or did you? He might have whispered the words to me. Or maybe I was just taunting myself.

“I had already loved you then, Ksei. But when you finally came back. When I saw what you did to Vladimir…”

Now. I want him to pull the gun I know he has hidden in his breast pocket. I wait for him to strike me with it and try to avenge his friend by putting a bullet into my brain. I wait.

And Piotr watches me. “I knew then who you really are. Moya lyubov , willing to do anything to see us reunited. Anything.”

“You’re sick.” Spittle flies with how harshly I grit the words out. “I killed him because I hate you. I bashed his brains the same way you tried to kill me. I used the same damn weapon—”

“ Our weapon.” He lets his tongue linger on the word, and it serves as the password to unlock the memories I’ve struggled for seven years to suppress.

The feel of the ashtray in my hand. His voice in my ear.“ Strike them hard… Draw it out.” The stench of blood in the air. I never could seem to scrub it from my fingers no matter how hard I tried. Maybe I never really tried at all.

“You remember it. How good it was between us.”

I remember…

I remember the beatings. The rapes. The awful things he made me do. I didn’t want to do them.

Lies.

I remember the feel of his weight on top of me. The hungry way he used to kiss me. Touch me. Possessively. Demandingly. How his scent would fill my lungs more than oxygen would. Wolf Blood.

“You remember the fun we used to have.”

Nostalgia taints his voice in a way I’ve never heard it. It almost sounds like he’s humming.

The fun. Him goading me on while I…

“Stop!” I’m shouting. I’m begging. Him. Myself. The gun flails—it finds a new target. My wrist aches as I twist it so that the barrel is against my stomach. “Stop.”

“Ksei.” His voice regains that commanding edge.

For once, he seems afraid. “You think killing yourself will keep you from me?” He throws his head back for a sharp bark of laughter that pierces me deeper than any bullet ever could.

“You are mine, Ksei. You came to me. But our reunion might be too much for you to bear at once. I can understand that.” He gives me another smile.

Another lethal blow. “I will give you a few days to remember our love. How about seven?”

I’m panting. I’m breathless. He seems so unconcerned. The only time he so much as flinches is when I raise the gun to my heart rather than my stomach.

“Seven days,” he tells me. “In the meantime, you may have the run of the city. Go back to that hovel you’ve found yourself in, though I would prefer the apartment. I will not contact you.”

“You’ve been watching me.” My voice breaks as the truth spells itself out before I even see him nod .

Every move I’ve made. Every pathetic attempt to convince myself that I had the nerve to really do it—kill him. He’s been watching. He’s been waiting.

He’s been amused.

“I could keep my distance,” he admits. “But I couldn’t go another moment without seeing you dance again.”

His words are the equivalent of someone revealing that my entire life has been played out on stage. All of those private, secretive moments that I thought were my own merely served as someone else’s entertainment.

“You were there…”

“I have my ways, Ksei.”

I swallow hard. For some reason, it’s easier to thumb the trigger with it pointed at my soul. Maybe the blow of a bullet could scrub him from it. Drive him out.

“Why?”

“It’s already too late, Ksei.” His eyes drift over my throat and then up to observe my face like it’s one of the many pieces of property he owns. “You already came back to me.”

“Get away!”

He takes a step, and I train the gun on him again, holding it unsteadily while I inch toward the doorway.

He lets me go, his eyes darker than midnight, his jaw clenched. “When you need me, I’ll be here. You will come back. In the meantime, remember me. All of it. We have much to discuss when I see you again.”

I turn on my heel and run. The suite becomes a maze.

I wander it for what feels like an eternity before I finally stagger out into the main lobby of the hotel.

Once I hit the street, I pick a direction and keep going.

My bare feet slam against the pavement, driving me forward.

I never stop to put the gun away. It’s my only protection from the memories.

It’s my only shield from the eyes watching me with every step I take.

Moya lyubov. Moya lyubov .

I hear him. I smell him. I taste him.

I’m dying again. I’m drowning. He’s bashed my brains in, and there is no one here to scoop them back up and tuck them neatly into my skull. Just silence. Just my own pulsing heartbeat.

Just him.