Page 155 of Twilight Sins

Love is loss. But if I have to lose her, I want to be there to witness every second of the destruction.

Maybe I’ll go back to the house tonight. One more night together. That’s what we need. A night to say goodbye.

I’m about to tell her exactly that when my phone falls out of my hands.

I lunge for it. But it isn’t falling. Someone took it.

“Enough of that,” Nik snaps. The screen is black now.

I frown. “You hung up on her.”

He tilts his head to one side. “Have you been drinking since I left you at dinner?”

That was today? I’ve lost track of time. The hours since I walked away from Luna in the kitchen feel like days.

She believed every word I said. Her eyes were glassy with tears. I could see her heart breaking while I shoved her away.

“She looks so pretty when she cries,” I murmur to no one in particular.

“You are in so fucking deep.”

“Give me my phone.” I swipe for his hand, but miss. Instead, I knock over a drink and beer sloshes across the bar.

The man a few stools over stands up, shaking spilled beer off of his pants onto the floor. “Get the fuck out of here, asshole. You’re wasted.”

“I could still waste you,” I growl.

“Come and fuckin’ try.”

Nik waves the other guy off. “Stand down, man. You don’t want to do this.”

“I’ll take both of you douche bags.” The man stands up, looking from me to Nik. “I’m not scared of a few pretty boys who can’t handle their liquor. I’ll teach you how to?—”

I don’t find out what he wants to teach me because my fist slams into his jaw.

Nik curses somewhere behind me, but I’m focused on the stumbling, groaning mudak in front of me. “You think you can hurt me? Fucking prove it.”

The man’s nostrils are flared. He’s shorter than I am, but he’s broad. Built like a bull. For a second, I imagine horns on his head.

Then he charges at me, his shoulder slamming hard into my sternum. He throws me back on a table and I don’t try to get up. I just lie there while he throws punch after punch into my torso.

I can’t feel anything. My body is numb. Everything is numb.

“Yakov!” Nik yells. “What the fuck are you doing? Fight!”

“Not so loud now, are you, you son of a bitch?” the man growls.

He thinks he’s winning. He thinks this is all I’ve got.

I let him land one more punch before I sit up and grab his fist. I twist his arm back and shove him against the bar.

“You can’t hurt me.” My knuckles split against his eye socket and his nose. He tries to dodge, but even drunk, I’m faster than he is.

I hit him again and again until he’s moaning, dripping blood onto the bar top.

Nik drags me back. “He’s had enough, Yakov.”

“Nik!” the bartender yells. “Get him out of here!”

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