Page 150 of Wicked Refusal

“Then you should have.”

He throws me down again. I should feel weak, being pushed around like this. I should be ashamed. But I can’t find it in me.

Because, for once, I’m winning.

Desya killed two of myvory.He grazed a third, crippled a fourth, sent the fifth hiding. Tonight, he came for my right-hand man.

But I’m the one he wants.

And as long as that’s true, I’ve got the upper hand.

He yanks off his eyepatch. A blackened crater stares at me from where his eye used to be. The jagged scar there… I remember carving every inch.

“It wasn’t mercy, you know.” He’s laughing now, crazed and manic. “What you did. It was cruel.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You let melive.” His voice turns jagged with madness. “It was hell. You damned me, Yul. Forced me to live with my sins for twenty fucking years!”

Sins.That word lodges in my gut like a stray bullet. So he’s aware, isn’t he? He knows what he’s done. That he butchered my family for nothing. After all those bullshit justifications he fed me, all the mental gymnastics—in the end, they couldn’t hold up in the face of the truth.

I wish I could say it feels good, but it doesn’t. In our past, there are no winners. Desya’s war made losers out of us all.

His remaining eye is bulging. I look at him and can’t find a single trace of the boy I once knew. Just a twisted reflection in a broken mirror.

My anger drains from me. All I can feel is cold, bitter disappointment.

It didn’t have to turn out this way. None of this had to turn out this way.

You could have chosen differently.

But he didn’t.

And here we fucking are.

“Now, you’re going to come with me.” He pulls out his gun, aims it right at my head. “You’re going to join me in hell, and you’ll never fucking leave again.”

“You think you can fix one sin with another?” I level my gaze. Even though I’m staring down the barrel of a gun, I’ve never felt calmer. “You think you’ll feel better with me dead? You won’t. You’ll still be miserable. You’ll still be alone.”

“No.” He shakes his head. A sick grin splits his face in half. “No, you’ll be there with me. But before I join you, I’ll pay a visit to your whore. Make sure every last Lozhkin is wiped from this earth, your little bastard included.”

“Like fuck you will.” All the anger I’d lost comes back with a vengeance. “You gave me your word.”

“Maybe you didn’t get the memo.” He cocks his gun. “Dead men can’t testify. And they sure as shit don’t keep their promises.”

I have no time to think. I lunge for the weapon. If I have to die, so be it—but not Mia. She’s blameless. Our child is blameless. There’s no point in my death if it can’t save them.

Desya kicks me back to the ground. He’d never get away with such a cheap tactic any other day, but my shoulder’s still bleeding freely, pounding with pain. When he grinds his foot on the wound, I can’t help the roar that comes out of me.

He touches the gun to my forehead. “See you in hell, brother.”

“Not if I see you first,” a feminine voice cuts in.

We both turn.

No.

It can’t be.