Page 170 of Wicked Refusal

So I was right. That’s what she was planning all along.

She’s gone. Again. Disappeared with thatmudak,with my baby in tow, to save her friend from death.

All because of Maksim.

“Nik.” My tone is ice. “Give me your gun.”

I can see her hesitating. “Yulian…”

“Take mine,” Maksim says, defiant. “Left holster.”

I push his jacket to the side and grab it with my free hand. Maksim doesn’t break eye contact, not once.

Not even when I push him to his knees.

“NO!” Kallie screams.

She starts charging at me, but Nikita holds her still. “Don’t,” my lieutenant warns, even though her face betrays horror, too. “This is between them.”

“But he’s gonna?—!”

I filter it out. All of it. The screams, the pain, the heartbreak.

I press my gun to Maksim’s forehead. “You betrayed me.”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

He doesn’t lower his head. Doesn’t stop holding my gaze, not for a second. “You betrayed me first.”

“No.” I shake my head, reject his accusation with every fiber of my body. “I?—”

“You abandoned me when I needed you,” he accuses. “Whenmy womanneeded you. I risked my life for Mia every day, and you couldn’t put your ego aside for five minutes when it was my girl on the line. Instead, you stomped out like a fucking toddler.” He spits a glob of blood on the floor. “Thank fuck your old man can’t see you now.”

Those words cut through me like a knife. Is that what I did? Abandoned my second? Let him down, let Mia down, when they needed me most?

No. I was just cooling off, that’s all. The deadline was still far off. There was plenty of time to come up with a plan.

Except…

“I need you to trust me.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

Maksim must see my inner turmoil, because he twists that knife right up. “That’s right,” he presses. “She asked you for help. She needed to save her friend, and you weren’t fucking there.”

“Careful…”

“Or what? You’ll kill me?” He coughs out an ugly, bitter laugh. “Go ahead. I’m at peace. But don’t you dare come lay a single flower on my grave, brother. ‘Cause it won’t have been Desya who put me there, or Prizrak, or even fate. It’ll have beenyou.”

I’m forcing myself to breathe, but it’s a fucking battle. Rage is burning me up from the inside, clouding the last scrap of judgment I’ve got.

Maksim is a traitor. He conspired with Mia to drug me, traded her in for his own girlfriend. He betrayed me. He deserves to die.

But didn’t I betray him first?

And finally, I’m at war with my own self. The human being on one side, thepakhanon the other, each fighting over the last square on the board. Deciding, once and for all, which one will rule from now on.