Dex nods, his face rigid with worry.
“We have a new enemy.”
“But who is it?” he whispers, not asking anyone in particular.
But then everything falls into place and I work out exactly what’s going on—I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier. Anger peaks inside me, shooting through me in a sharp spike of adrenalin.
“I knowexactlywho the fuck it is,” I snarl, spinning towards Ruslana.
She flinches away from me when my eyes land on her. I turn all of my anger onto her.
“Do you think you can distract me while your brothers tear my men apart?” I shout at her. “Youdid this. You may as well have killed these men yourself because of the partyouplayed. Just because you didn’t pull the trigger yourself doesn’t mean you aren’t a murderer just like your brothers are.”
I am furious and she can see it.
She looks completely shocked because I’ve worked it out. She was such a good actress. She played her part so well. But now I can see straight through her.
Why else would she be so willing to give herself to me like that?
She has been communicating with her brothers somehow and she used today to distract me so that they could get in here, behind my back.
My fists are clenching and unclenching at my side as I step towards her. She steps back, looking terrified. Lifting her hands up to defend herself.
“I didn’t have anything to do with this,” she whimpers. But I know it’s an act. She is coy and deceitful, and I will never fall for it again.
The death of these men is on her hands.Shehas to bear the burden of it. The loss their families are suffering. This was pointless and cruel. There was no reason to kill them. No reason for them to have to die.
Her brothers are sick fucks to carry out a plan like this.
I step even closer to her and grab her arm, dragging her across the warehouse. I pull her close to the dead men, covered in those white sheets. Ripping one of them away, my heart pulls tight at the sight of his face—half of it blown away by a bullet that ripped through his cheek and exploded out the side of his head.
After a second, I pull myself together, grab Ruslana by the back of the neck and force her to look at him.
“He died because of you,” I snarl angrily. “Look at what you did.”
Tears are streaming down her face, but I don’t care. She needs to see this. She needs to see the reality of what she did. The blood. The death. The pain.
She yanks herself away from me, almost falling backwards.
She’s sobbing.
Chapter 16 - Ruslana
His fingers are digging sharply into the back of my neck. It’s painful and even though I cry out he ignores me. His anger is making him believe impossible things. I didn’t haveanythingto do with this. How can he think that? How can he even logically believe it—I’ve been locked up.
He is holding my face inches from the dead man’s. Those cold, empty eyes are staring back at me—the way his cheek is torn open, blood and tissue oozing out of it—my stomach is churning with fear, and disgust, and horror that someone did this to him. Just an hour ago this man wasalive. Talking. Breathing. Maybe laughing. Moving around and going about his day and he had no idea that his life was about to end.
Tears flood down my face, splashing onto his dead skin. I want to vomit. The stench of drying blood, rich iron and death are overwhelming me.
In a surge of panic, I yank myself out of Avraam’s tight grip. Pulling away from him hurts. It leaves scratches on my neck and I can already feel I will be bruised.
I land hard on my ass, luckily falling away from the dead men.
Immediately, I start scooting even further away.
Panic, shock and fear are all I can feel right now.
I reach up and gingerly touch my neck, wincing at how tender it is.