Page 164 of Wicked Refusal

The world starts tilting.

“I’m sorry.” She’s crying now, grabbing me under the arms as I lose my balance. Lowering me gently to the ground so I don’t fall. “I’m so sorry, Yulian. For everything.”

Tears keep shattering on the terracotta tiles. I reach out instinctively to wipe them away, but that only seems to make Mia cry harder.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “It’s just a mild sedative. You’ll wake up soon. Won’t feel a thing.”

Betrayal doesn’t catch up to me fast enough. Sadness doesn’t, either.

But one thing does.

Fear.

Not for myself—forher.

Because suddenly, I know how she’s planning to get Kallie back.

I stretch my hand. Try to stop her, keep her here, but my vision is too blurry, my limbs too heavy. I’m fighting against the current and losing.

Don’t go.

Don’t… don’t leave.

Don’t walk away from me again.

“Goodbye, Yulian.”

The world spins. It crashes, blinks in and out of focus.

Then there’s nothing.

There’s no one.

Mia is gone, and I’m left all alone.

57

MIA

I don’t look back.

If I do, it’ll be over. I won’t be able to go through with it. So I force myself to walk away. One foot in front of the other, like I’ve done for so long.

Just like Ginny said: Running away—isn’t that what I do best?

We climb into the car. As the engine roars to life, Maksim steals a concerned glance my way. “Are you certain about this?”

No.“I am.”

“Pardon my insistence, but you don’t sound it.”

I take a deep, centering breath. He’s not wrong, but I can’t show weakness now. Yulian isn’t here to be the boss, which means I have to be. “It’s the only way. Kallie needs us.”

He grits his teeth at that. I can see his loyalty to Yulian warring with his love for my best friend. “You won’t be able to come back from this, you know.”

“Neither will you.”

He doesn’t contradict me. If there’s one thing Yulian doesn’t take kindly to, it’s betrayal. Maksim may not have been in on my plan, but he didn’t exactly stop me, either. None of us are innocent.