Page 47 of Shadow Waltz

I leaned closer, my mouth by his ear, and whispered, “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? To see what I’d become when I broke. To see what I could do if I stopped caring.”

His head shook wildly, terror overtaking pride. “No—Ash—please, you’re not like this?—”

But I was. I was exactly this, and I’d been made this way by men like him.

I drew back, staring him in the eye. “You know what the difference is between you and me, Rajesh?”

He shook his head, whimpering, unable to look away from the gleam of the blade.

I pressed the knife against his throat, feeling the rapid flutter of his pulse. “You use power to feel alive. I use it to survive.”

His mouth opened, another plea caught in his throat.

I grinned—cold, victorious, unforgiving. “You taught me a lesson tonight. Let me return the favor.”

He broke then, his pride gone, his voice a cracked, pathetic whisper: “Please, Ash—please, I don’t want to die, please, I’ll give you anything?—”

I looked down at the knife, at my bloody hands, then back at his face. “You know what I want?” I said, voice almost gentle. “I want you to remember this. I want you to know—at the very end—who did this to you. I want you to see me.”

He choked on a sob, eyes wide, staring into mine as if searching for mercy.

I pressed the blade in, just enough to break the skin. “No more deals. No more games.”

He shuddered, breath rattling. “Ash?—”

I drove the knife in, hard and quick, just below his ribcage, angling up and under. His body seized, blood bubbling from his lips as he tried to scream. I twisted the blade, feeling it bite through muscle and sinew, then pulled it free in a slick, red arc.

He collapsed in the chair, legs twitching, eyes wide and shocked. His mouth worked, a final plea dying unspoken.

I stood, watching as the light faded from his eyes, as the blood soaked through his underwear and onto the velvet seat. For a long moment, I didn’t move. I just watched him die, breathing hard, the knife heavy in my hand.

The room was silent except for the sound of my own breath. The guards were already dead, sprawled on the floor in a tangle of limbs and ruin. The carpet squelched beneath my feet as I stepped away from Rajesh, blood sticking to my skin, the stench of death thick in the air.

I wiped the knife on the chair, not caring about the stain, and tucked it back into my jacket. My hands shook—not with fear,but with the cold aftermath, the adrenaline slipping away and leaving me empty.

My mind spun through the events—the seduction, the humiliation, the slow unraveling of control until all that was left was violence. I had given Rajesh everything he’d wanted, up to the moment he realized the price.

I barely heard the door open over the distant alarms, the slick sound of blood still echoing in my ears. Footsteps—measured, deliberate. Luka. He didn’t shout, didn’t brandish a weapon, didn’t flinch at the carnage. He just closed the door behind him, silence blooming in his wake.

He moved through the aftermath like a shadow, his tailored suit untouched, his expression unreadable in the uncertain light. For a moment, he only looked—at Rajesh’s body slumped in the chair, at the cooling corpses on the carpet, at me, standing in the center of it all, blood drying on my chest and throat. Our eyes met in the mirror, and something old and raw flickered there.

He spoke first, voice low, almost gentle. “Was it enough, Ash? Did you win?”

I laughed—a raw, broken sound that scraped my throat. “Was this your test, Luka? Did I pass?”

He stepped closer, boots squelching in the thick carpet. For all the power and quiet menace he wore like a second skin, there was something softer in his eyes, something almost lost. “This was never about passing or failing.”

“Bullshit.” I spat the word, knuckles white around the knife. “You wanted to see how far I’d go. How much I’d survive. How easy it’d be for me to kill.”

He tilted his head, assessing me, the faintest trace of regret at the corners of his mouth. “I saw how easy it was for you, Ash. That’s what frightens me most.”

I let my shoulders sag, adrenaline draining out of me, exhaustion rushing in to fill the space. “I did what I had to do.”

His gaze softened a fraction. “You always do.”

We stood in the silence, the space between us thick with blood and history. He didn’t look away from the bodies. He didn’t offer comfort, but he didn’t judge either. There was a distance in him, an old grief, but also a fierce protectiveness—something dark and possessive that I’d seen before, when he thought no one else was watching.

“Rajesh was never going to let you leave this room alive,” Luka said quietly, almost a confession. “Neither were his men.”