Page 69 of Twisted Fate

VALENTINA

I t feels like time slows as Kane extends the gun toward me, as I take it, as I point it at Konstantin. I feel my heart shredding into ribbons at the look on his face, as I realize that some part of him is wondering if I’m going to pull the trigger. If I’m going to buy my life with his.

The gun gleams in the morning light as the sun rises, burning through the glass walls, lighting up the room all around us. My wrists throb where the zip ties have left raw rings of abraded skin, my body a catalog of pain from Kane's punishment. But none of that matters now.

All that matters is that somehow, we both get out of this. Alive.

Konstantin’s eyes remain locked with mine, unwavering, accepting. He doesn't close them, doesn't look away. Even now, even facing death at my hands, he sees me. He wants me .

Even after everything. Maybe because of it. Maybe because after all the lies, if we choose each other at the end of this, it can only be the truth.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, so softly only he can hear it. I hope he understands what I mean.

That I’m sorry for lying to him. For ever thinking I could kill him. That I’m sorry for the risk I’m about to take—that it’s come to this, at the end of it all.

I move, faster than Kane or his men anticipate, my body screaming in protest as I swing the gun away from Konstantin and toward Kane instead. I get one clean shot off before all hell breaks loose.

Kane staggers backward, blood blooming across his pristine white shirt, his expression one of utter shock. Not dead—the shot caught him in the shoulder, not the heart as I intended—but wounded and off-balance.

Garrett lunges for me, but Konstantin is already moving, sweeping the legs out from under the guard holding him. One of Konstantin’s men takes advantage of the moment of surprise to headbutt the guard nearest him, grabbing for the man's weapon as he falls.

The glass room erupts into chaos—gunfire, shouts, the sickening sound of flesh hitting flesh, and I’ve never been so grateful that it’s bulletproof, or we’d all be dead.

I keep moving, refusing to be an easy target, firing again at Kane as he scrambles for cover.

But there is none in this room. It’s a killing floor, and I intend for Konstantin and me to come out alive.

It looks like more of his men have weapons, all of them fighting for their lives.

Two of Kane's men rush me, probably thinking I’m an easier target now.

Their mistake . I might be hurt, but I'm still the weapon Kane forged me to be.

I drop the first with a shot to the knee, then drive my elbow into the second's throat as he reaches for me.

He goes down gasping, and I take his weapon, now armed with two guns.

Across the room, Konstantin is fighting like a demon, a furious predator unleashed, his face a mask of anger and his every movement proving just how well-trained he is.

He's magnificent in his rage, and for a moment I'm transfixed by the sight of him—this man who came for me, who risked everything for me.

A bullet cracks against the glass wall inches from my head, snapping me back to the present. The floor beneath us shudders ominously. The glass is bulletproof, but with enough fire, it will fail eventually.

"We need to move!" Konstantin shouts over the din. "This whole place could collapse!"

My pulse speeds up, pounding painfully in my throat. I see spiderweb cracks starting to form beneath our feet, spreading outward from the bullet impacts. If the floor gives way, we'll plummet hundreds of feet to the rocks below.

I scan the room for Kane, finding him near the door, clutching his bleeding shoulder as he attempts to flee the collapsing structure. My bullet has slowed him, but not stopped him.

"Kane's getting away!" I shout to Konstantin, who's engaged with Garrett, the two men locked in a brutal struggle for Garrett's weapon.

"Go!" Konstantin yells back. "I've got this!" He motions to his men, who close behind me, blocking off the other guards as I bolt for Kane just as he slaps his hand against the scanner and the door whooshes open.

I don't hesitate, trusting him to handle himself as I pursue Kane.

I sprint through the door after him, ignoring the screaming pain in my ribs, the protesting muscles of my battered body.

All that matters is catching him, ending this once and for all.

All thoughts of drawing it out, of slow torture, are gone now, too.

I just want him dead.

The hallway outside is a battlefield. Konstantin's remaining men are engaged with Kane's security throughout the compound, the sounds of gunfire and shouting echoing off marble floors and high ceilings.

I catch glimpses of the fight as I run—Konstantin's men are outnumbered but fighting with the desperate intensity of those who know retreat isn't an option. They came here with him, willing to die for him, for me , a woman they barely know, because I’m his wife. If I didn’t already know what kind of man Konstantin was, that would be telling—that kind of loyalty.

I follow the trail of blood Kane is leaving, tracking him through the sprawling house to what appears to be his private wing.

The doors here require biometric access, but in his haste, Kane has left them open, fleeing toward what I assume is his personal escape route.

He’s going for the helicopter, trusting that his men will finish off Konstantin and me.

I catch up to him in his bedroom, a massive space dominated by a wall of windows overlooking the ocean. He's at a hidden panel in the wall, his bloody hand pressed against a scanner as a section of the wall slides open to reveal a narrow passageway beyond.

“Stop.” My voice is cold, almost unrecognizable to me as I level both my weapons at him. Kane freezes, then slowly turns, his face shifting to the calculating expression that I've seen a thousand times before. Always assessing, always manipulating. I learned it from him.

I doubt I’ll ever be able to unlearn it. But right now, it might save me.

“Valentina.” His voice drips with disappointment, a caricature of paternalism. “You’ve fallen so far. Think about what you’re doing. How ungrateful this is. How?—”

“Shut the fuck up,” I snap. “I’ve thought about this for days. Ever since I learned what you did, you fucking—” I swallow hard, gritting my teeth. “You killed my family. You lied to me. You made me believe you were the only family I had left?—”

“Because I was!” Kane’s voice rises. “I gave you better than your pathetic father ever could?—”

I pull the trigger. The bullet hits his knee, dropping him to the ground as I advance. “Think before you speak again,” I hiss, and Kane looks up, his face a mask of rage.

“I saved you, Valentina. I gave you a life when yours was destroyed. I made you strong, special, extraordinary." His eyes bore into mine, his lips pulled back to show his teeth, like a cornered animal. The attack dog I once imagined him as. "Everything you are is because of me."

And there it is—the fundamental truth that has shaped my existence for as long as I can remember. Kane, the center of my universe. Kane, the architect of the assassin I became. Kane, my father and master, and creator.

No more.

"You're right," I acknowledge, my voice steady.

"You made me what I am. You took a traumatized child and turned her into a killer.

" I step closer, one gun still aimed at his heart.

"But that's not all I am. That's not all I can be. You turned me into a liar, too—because that’s all you are. A liar, and none of this was ever real.”

For the first time, I see something like regret in his eyes… something real. “We could have been unstoppable,” he breathes. “You were the only daughter I ever had, Valentina. I would never have let you go.”

I can hear my pulse beating hard in my ears. “I’m not your daughter,” I whisper. “And you were never my father, Nicholas.”

I pull the trigger. I look into his eyes as my finger curls back, seeing the moment that he realizes it’s over, that there’s no escape. That the weapon he forged, that the killer he created, has come back to bring him down, the monster turned against the creator.

The bullet flies through his forehead. He jerks, a split-second of shock on his face, and blood paints the wall behind him as he drops, the cream-colored carpet soaking red with all that’s left of his life.

He dies staring at me.

I wait for some feeling of regret, of loss, of grief to overtake me. But there’s nothing. Nothing except, as the moments tick by, a sensation of relief. Of closure.

This is what I spent my life chasing. Revenge on the person responsible for my family’s death. And I have it, here in front of me.

It’s over.

I hear footsteps behind me and spin to see Konstantin burst into the room. I lower my guns the instant that I see him, but keep them ready. He’s bloodied and bruised, and I can see the urgency in his face.

“Is he dead?” he asks, and I nod, not trusting my voice just yet.

“Good.” He crosses to me, then, the space between us closes in two quick strides, and his hand wraps around the back of my neck as he pulls me in for a hot, desperate kiss.

I taste blood on his mouth, his teeth scraping against my lip before he lets me go, breathing hard.

“We have to go,” he says, searching my face for a response, for some emotion. “We fought Kane’s men off, but they’re regrouping, and if they call for backup, we’re outnumbered. We need to get to the helicopter.”

I nod, glancing toward the space in the wall where Kane opened up the panel. “Let them know to come this way. We can go through there.”