Page 66 of The Game

“It won’t work,” Daniel says coolly. “Haddie’s a mercenary. She’s helped us for years in procuring…expensive women, shall we say?”

I reel back a step, confusion setting in. Haddie picks at her nails with her deadly knife as though bored.

“Your friend, Ellie,” she says with a snort. “It was too easy to track her down and give her away. It’s a shame that ugly-ass man found her. She would’ve done so well as a pet. She cried so pretty when they fucked her.”

Now I am shaking in fury.

“I can’t wait to—”

“To what?” she snorts, eyes flicking to me. “Sic your twins on me? They’ll be lucky if they make it away from Dmitry alive. And that freak you seem to love so much? He’ll be worthless when I gut his vegetable mother in front of him. It’s a mercy, really. Her life is pointless.”

Furious tears race down my cheeks.

“No life is pointless.”

She snorts.

“Really? Not even mine?”

I shake my head.

“No. Because when I get out of here, I’ll make sure they let me kill you, and it’ll be the greatest gift they could ever give me.”

She rolls her eyes to Daniel, mocking me at every turn. Shifting, arms trembling with the weight of the gun, I raise it slightly, but she’s quicker than I give her credit for, reeling back and throwing the knife with precision. Although I twist at the last possible second and fire off a shot in Daniel’s direction, it still sinks into my side, the pain flaring and burning as I scream and crumble to my knees.

She’s on me just as fast, Daniel wailing; I must have at least hit his shoulder. Before I can think through the haze of pain, she’s knocked me to the ground, reaching for my gun. I don’t hesitate this time as my finger tugs the trigger harder than I ever have. The second shot seems louder in my pounding ears, and it catches her in the neck, blood spurting from the wound as she gags, her eyes widening in shock because she underestimated me—a Stefanov. She hurt my best friend, she hurt my twins, and she’s going to try to hurt Teddy. I feel not one ounce of regret as her brows furrow, her shocked face hovering above mine as her warm blood trickles down and covers me, mingling with my own.

Watching the life waver in someone’s eyes leaves its indelible mark on you, and as those brown orbs flicker and go dark, I know it will never go away—the sting of my first kill, no matter how righteous and necessary.

She slumps over with a resounding thud, and as the pain in my side from the knife burns, Daniel is on me so quickly I don’t have time for a defense. He shoves her dead body away and wrestles the gun from my bloody, slippery hands, pinning me down with his weight on my legs and torso as I twist and writhe and fight—fight for Teddy, for Tristan, for Jameson, for myself and what I carry.

But when he wrenches the knife from my side and I cannot help but to scream in utter agony, and the malicious, deranged look enters his eyes, the hope I’d been clinging to begins to falter.

“Knowing you’re carrying that filthy spawn makes this all the sweeter, you fucking cunt. This is for my brother,” he spits, raising the knife with one hand, pinning my wrists with the other. I scream. I scream so loudly that it makes my eardrums pop. I thrust my hips up against his weight to unseat him, but it doesn’t work.

And as the knife plunges into my stomach over and over and over, I can at least smile in knowing I’ll soon be reunited in peace with the ones I love.

PARTTWO

“The faith and the fighter / lining up the streets / singing for the damned / confessing to the choir, bury every beast / and we are Born Again,”

–Andy Biersack

CHAPTER 32

Jameson

Mid-January

Droplets of rain congregate and race down the window panes in our living room. It is quiet, always. Our home could be a morgue, or a crypt. No one ever speaks. No music thuds from the gym during Tristan’s workouts. No timer blares through the kitchen, only to be ignored as we fuck ourbabochkaand our dinner becomes burned. There is no light, no happiness—only shades of gray and unrelenting sorrow that I feel in the deepest depths of my soul.

Pressing my thumb into my aching palm over the circular scar, my eyes stay locked on Alice’s pale, slender form as she sits in front of that window. I should be thankful she doesn’t lock herself away in her room, but seeing her is somehow worse, for there is nothing I can do to help her, and in that, my fury grows.

After that fateful night, we’d almost lost her. She’d been stabbed twelve times, her blood loss one thing, her sepsis the other. She’s still recovering physically, but mentally…I doubt anyone can conquer what she’s been through. I’ve attempted to remain understanding, to be soft in my approach with her, but she refuses to speak much on what she went through.

I know seeing us hurt, seeing us tortured, is just the tip of the iceberg. As much as I fucking hate the kid that saved her life, I have to be simultaneously thankful for him, for without his quick thinking, we’d all be dead.

Bringing the vodka to my lips, I do not wince as it sears through me, the thought I try to keep locked away pulsing around the edges of my psyche.

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