Page 84 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

My chest tightened when I thought about the last night we’d had together. The gala. It was where everything changed for us. I knew it would hurt her seeing Serena on my arm. What killed me was seeing the resignation on her face throughout the night. There wasn’t one ounce of anger when she saw Serena on my arm. No tears. Just the look of someone who had given up the fight.

That was a look I knew too well from men who fought in the ring in Russia. The look that came right before the death blow.

Her sudden refusal to fight made sense once Vas had learned she’d signed the divorce papers. Papers she was never meant to see. Taking Serena to the ball had been meant to put distance between Ava and myself. To show her I couldn’t give her what she wanted. My love. The move also allowed me to set up the needed hit with Kenzi. Serena’s family had ties with Kirill’s men. Once she was sure I was dead, she scuttled back to her master with that important information.

She didn’t live long after that.

“Fuck.” Kenzi cursed painfully. That had me paying attention. Ava had managed to get Kenzi on her back, a knife to her throat as she screamed down at her.

Fucking hell.

The pair wasn’t paying attention to me as I strode through the barn. My footsteps were quiet, muffled by the hay-strewn floor.

“You. Took. Everything.”

Everything. That one word nearly broke me. She thought I was her everything, and I had treated her as if she meant nothing to me. Even if the opposite was true, she had never known that. I had never let her.

“Then do it,” Kenzi hissed, baring her teeth as she taunted her sister by moving her neck further into the blade.

“Enough!” My command echoed through the barn. Ava hesitated, and I took that chance to grab her under the arms and pull her off her sister. The knife in her hand clattered uselessly to the ground, and I was immediately swept up into her familiar scent.

Jasmine.

“Enough,Krasnyy,” I whispered, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. God, she felt exquisite in my arms. Her body wasn’t as soft, but I could still feel her curves in all the right places.

She cried out in denial, her sobs shaking her body as she fought my hold. “Stop,” she pleaded desperately. “Stop. Please.”

But I wouldn’t.

“Red.”

Ava was too far gone. This was why I wanted to wait. The shock of seeing me alive was too much for her on top of the adrenaline that had been coursing through her system. It wouldn’t be long before her body would give out when the high ran out.

She was hyperventilating, her eyes wide with fear and distrust as she clawed and kicked wildly in my hold. I tried to soothe her. To reassure her, but nothing could calm the frantic race of her heart.

“You should have waited,” I hissed at Kenzi. “This was what I was hoping to avoid.”

Kenzi shrugged, holding one hand to her still bleeding nose. “At least I faced up to her.”

“And almost got yourself killed by her, too,” I snarled. “Good job. If I hadn’t shown up in time, you would have ended up with a knife through your chest.”

“I had everything under control.” She bit her lip nervously when Ava’s body suddenly went limp. Her body had finally given out on her, but she’d be fine. Well, except for the killer headache she would have when she woke back up.

“Fuck no you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Get the hell out of here, Kenzi,” I growled. “We’ll talk about this later when she wakes up and is feeling less homicidal.”

“Good luck with that ever happening,” she muttered as she limped toward the exit. Kenzi paused, looking back at her sister passed out in my arms. “This place has memories,” she whispered to me. “Painful ones. You might try and dig a little into the past while you can. Might find something useful.”

Then she was gone.

For fuck’s sake.

Another cryptic warning was all I needed.

Gently, I laid Ava out on a small bed of semi-clean hay. Not that it mattered much since she was covered in it herself, but I couldn’t bring myself to just lay her out anywhere.

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