Page 87 of Malevolent King

“Sofia,” Niko’s voice broke me from my stupor.

I realized with a shock that I was crying, hot, urgent sobs forcing up my throat, and my hands were shaking too hard to stop.“I-I killed someone,” I forced out, feeling dizzy, like I could sleep for a week.

Nikolai approached, wrapping his arms around me. His hand soothed over my back in a comforting circle.“You protected yourself.”

“I k-killed someone,” I repeated like a skipping record. I couldn’t process that simple fact. The darkness beckoned.

“Sofia, it was him or us,” Nikolai said, leaning down to cup my face.

The wailing in the background was growing closer, and my overwhelmed brain couldn’t process it.

“It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. You were just surviving… you saved us.”

I blinked up at him, suddenly realizing that I wasn’t alone in that dark place, that space between worlds. Nikolai was there.

I’ll always find you, Sofia. Wherever you go, I will always come for you.

“Now, you need to let me save you,lastochka,” he whispered and pulled me in for a fierce kiss. “Wait for me, prom queen.”

“We need to run.” I stumbled to the side, my legs unsteady. My world was crashing down, and I was losing grip on which way was up.

“There’s no time. We wouldn’t make it.”

Then he pushed me away from him. I stumbled back as the first cop car came into view. Four cars followed, pulling to quick stops on the winding drive as they took in the scene.

Nikolai was looking at me, his handsome face more devilish than I’d ever seen it, painted red with blood. The reflection of the cop car’s lights displayed the perfect hollows of his resolved expression.

Then I saw his hand, and the knife in it. I blinked down at my now-empty fist. When had he taken it?

“Wait for me. I’ll come for you,” he said again.

A new terror seized me.“Nikolai—no!”

He didn’t listen, simply turning toward the flashing lights and holding his hands, bloodstained, still clutching the knife, over his head.

“Put the weapon down and get on your knees!” A cop spoke over a loudspeaker. There had to be at least eight guns trained on him.

Nikolai slowly sank to his knees, right next to Silvio’s dead body.

“Miss, are you all right? What happened here?” A female officer approached me, looking concerned.

“This is all wrong. He didn’t kill him, I—” I stumbled as Niko’s head turned toward me.

He shook his head slowly, as if telling me off. A wicked look played over his face. He was the man who laughed in the face of death, prison, and anything else that usually terrified people.

“What happened here, Officer, was a gang fight, and I’m the victor. I was going to take her hostage to get out of here. She doesn’t know what’s going on.” Nikolai laughed. “And this man lying beside me? I killed him.” His smile was unhinged as he shrugged, wiping the blood off his face with a red-stained hand. “I’ve wanted to kill him for five years.”

The cops standing over Niko exchanged looks, and then one moved to cuff him.

“In that case, I’m placing you under arrest.”

EPILOGUE

ONE MONTH LATER

Nikolai

“You know, in another life, you could have been a politician or a banker. Something about you just doesn’t look right in jail. Nope, you’re a rich house arrest guy through and through,” I drawled as Kirill arrived at the small, chipped plastic table where I was waiting for him.

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