Page 33 of Reign of Four

“Let go, love, it’s over. He’s dead.”

Harsh ringing in my ears makes it hard to hear Mikhail’s words as he gently pries the handgun from my fingers. The sharp smell of gunpowder hits my nose when I breathe deep. I stumble out of Mikhail’s grasp toward Ezra.

Blood seeps into the grass. My heart pounds harder than ever before, pushing adrenaline through my veins. My vision blurs as tears sting my eyes.

In a single heartbeat, everything’s changed.

Ezra blinks up at me as I collapse against his chest, falling hard into his lap. He groans, and I instantly try to backpedal once I realize he’s hurt, but he’ll have none of it. He wraps one arm around my waist and hoists me higher up his thighs, forcing me to straddle him.

“I hurt you.” Panicked tears pool in the corners of my eyes. Andrei already has his palm pressed tightly over a gunshot wound to Ezra’s shoulder, but I still apply my own pressure. “I shot you.”

His voice rumbles low, his Russian accent thicker than usual on accord of the drugs in his system. “You saved me, lisichka.” He buries his face in the column of my throat, scraping coarse stubble across my skin. “I am still here. Feel me. Feel heart beating.” He pulls my hand from his shoulder and buries it beneath the collar of his shirt, pressing my palm flat against his chest so that I can feel his heartbeat. But its beat shouldn’t be that slow—if anything, he should be more concerned than he is. What if he isn’t getting enough oxygen in his system—or what if he’s so used to being shot, he doesn’t realize how serious this one is—or what if?—

“Valentina. I am fine. Breathe with me.”

Together, we breathe deep. So deep that it aches. He nestles his face in the crook of my neck the entire time, mumbling old Russian prayers. Each of them burrows beneath my skin, soft and sweet, just like they did when my mother used to recite them to me when I was a child. Ezra must have heard me recite them years ago while he stood outside my bedroom door, acting as my bodyguard. They’re prayers of protection and healing, meant not for yourself, but for others. Not once did I ever expect to hear them from Ezra.

As he finishes the final one, he presses a tender kiss to my jawline. “You are safe, Valentina Violetta Baranova, no matter how far apart our hearts.”

Even when he’s the one bleeding, he’s worried about me. My heart swells with love for this selfless man. He’s always protected me over himself. I’ve always thought it was because his pakhan gave the order, but although his protection may have began that way, a bodyguard doesn’t pray for his charge. They don’t storm into enemy territory with a small army at their back for just anyone. He makes shrugging off a bullet wound look like it’s just another day at the office when I know it hurts like hell. Not only that, he brushed hands with death moments ago.

He did all of that, and probably more than I’ll ever know, for me.

The gravity of his vow has never felt more significant. I don’t know how I ever took this man for granted before. Ezra. His name falls from my lips as a whisper. I don’t know what to say. Nothing will ever be enough to show him how grateful I am.

Ezra lifts his eyes to mine, and everything that’s ever been left unsaid passes between us with that single glance. He doesn’t need words. He never has.

When he kisses me with a slow, purposeful press of his lips, I realize that I don’t need words, either. Not when it comes to Ezra.

Our perfect moment of solace ends once we pull apart and reality sets back in.

I may have shot Ezra, but I killed Liam.

His body lies directly in front of me, fallen to the wayside after I sunk a handful of bullets into his guts. The henchman that held Ezra’s arms behind his back is dead, too—Andrei shot him the same exact moment I shot Liam.

I keep staring at Liam, waiting for him to lunge at me. To choke me. Call me a whore. Grab the knife I plunged into his thigh and shove it between my ribs. To kill me, so that no one else can have me.

None of this feels real. Not the fact that Liam is dead—that Katya is dead—nor the fact that all of my men and I are alive and together again.

Andrei barks orders to armored guards, and within seconds, they drag away the henchman’s body. Before they can move Liam, however, Mikhail holds up his hand to pause their advance. Crouching in front of my ex-boyfriend’s corpse, he whistles. “Damn, Valentina, you took what I said earlier to heart. You got him four times, right in the chest. Wait, no, five if we count the forearm.”

“I’m not counting anymore, Mikhail.” Our eyes meet over Ezra’s shoulder. “I’m done counting.”

His lips twitch into a scowl. “I’m nowhere near done.” He unsheathes a hunting knife strapped to his thigh and begins carving into Liam’s body, muttering under his breath the entire time. Ezra picks up on what he’s saying instantly, and the pair mumbles together in unison, counting in Russian.

I watch as Mikhail rolls Liam onto his back and digs the knife in deep, wherever he can find purchase, all across his body. Despite it being too late to cause the man pain, he makes a show of slicing into him, counting higher and higher until he reaches ninety-nine. Then his gaze flicks over to me. “Your turn.”

Ezra releases me as Mikhail slides his hands under my armpits and pulls me into his lap. He presses the knife handle into my palm and wraps his hand around mine, securing the weapon in place. “One more, malyshka. The last one,” he murmurs, kissing the soft spot behind my ear. “It’ll feel good, I promise.”

I’ve pictured stabbing Liam a thousand times. Cutting into the artery on his neck, or his thigh, or slicing off his balls one at a time and shoving them down his throat. Grotesque things I never would have imagined before. Things I never would have wanted.

But he hurt me, stole me, assaulted me. He tried to kill my men. He drugged Ezra, poisoned my grandmother, gaslit me for years, and still had the audacity to insist he loved me.

What a fucking nightmare.

I grip the knife tight and plunge the blade deep. Its tip is serrated and makes a hideous, wet sound as it carves through Liam’s flesh. He can’t feel it—but I can. Stabbing him in the thigh and thigh in the dining room was quick. A jab of anger as I plunged a switchblade into him. This, however, is slow, deliberate, and somehow . . . cathartic.

Mikhail helps me wedge the knife deeper, pushing it in between two of Liam’s ribs to hit his heart. I wish it were still beating. I wish I could see the horror in his eyes as the woman he thinks he loves is the one to kill him.

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