Page 143 of Sinful Games

It couldn’t be happening.

No. No, no, no, no?—

“Lukyan, come on, baby, wake up,” I whispered, the words trembling, barely making it past my lips. My hands shook, my voice broke. “Please, wake up.”

Nothing.

I shook him, harder this time, my hands trembling with the force of it, with the desperation.

“Lukyan!”

His tiny body flopped, limp, lifeless.

No.

Tears blurred my vision, stung my eyes, hot and fucking burning, but they couldn’t fall, couldn’t move past the choking, suffocating thing in my throat.

And then it ripped out of me?—

A scream.

Raw, jagged, tearing through my throat like a knife, splitting me wide open.

“LUKYAN! NO!”

I clutched him tighter, my hands fisting in his tiny clothes, my body trembling as I rocked him back and forth, back and forth, like I could somehow soothe him into coming back.

But he didn’t move.

He didn’t stir.

He didn’t fuckingbreathe.

My boy. My beautiful, perfect boy.

Gone.

I sobbed, the sound breaking, cracking like glass, until my throat burned, and my chest felt hollow, like something had been scooped out of me.

This wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be real.

But the cold weight of his body, the stiffness creeping into his limbs—it was real.

Too real. Too final.

I rocked him, back and forth, my heart splitting open, bleeding out into the silence, the crushing fucking silence.

He was gone. And I was left holding his body—this shell, this tiny, lifeless shell—rocking it like that would somehow undo the nightmare.

But I couldn’t fix it.

I couldn’tfucking fix it.

“Caia!” I cried, my voice cracking as I tore through the apartment, stumbling over my own feet, desperation clawing at me like a rabid animal.

Where the fuck was she?