Page 137 of Never Fall for an Angel

“Mila, what thefuckare you doing?”

I suck in a deep breath—

God, this is going to hurt.

—Then I raise the pistol, pointing it at his chest.

His eyes darken past recognition, a demon taking over his features. Devastatingly handsome. Deathly sinister.

He chuckles wickedly, the sound dripping with malice, and for a single second, I almost back out.

I blink back the tears in my eyes, forcing myself to meet his dark gaze head-on.

“Who are you?” I whisper, voice barely audible over the racing of my own heart pounding in my ears and the thunder rumbling over the ocean.

“Mila, youknowwho I am.” It’s quiet. Resolute.

Why do I believe him, even when everything up to this point has been a lie between us?

“Do I?”

Christian doesn’t say anything for a moment, and my heart bottoms out, cracking open like a fissure in the earth. Broken and desolate.

“Did you help him?” A traitorous tear slips down my cheek. He watches its descent, his gaze burning before it slips back to mine.

The air between us seems to cackle with electricity as that look in his eyes morphs into something inhuman. Demonic.

“Pull the trigger, Mila.”

I let out a shaky breath, a quiet sob breaking from my throat as my body trembles. A rush of emotions swirls through me like a tornado touching down in the middle of the city, wreaking havoc in its wake.

One, though, burns brighter than all the others.

I can’t fucking do it.

“You think I could watch someone rape you?” His voice is cruel, tinged with disappointment and disgust. “Slice you open and watch you bleed? Hear your pain and not want to fucking put a bullet in my head?” His eyes flash with venom, his lips pulling back in a snarl.

I close my eyes, desperately trying to push those voices out of my head, but it’s no use. His hands are on me, grabbing me. His knife is in my skin. His smiling, plastic face burned into the backs of my eyelids, taunting me.

Born from the same blood as the man in front of me. My savior.

“Pull the fucking trigger,” Christian grits, his voice deeper and darker than anything I’ve ever heard.

“You forced me to marry you.”

“Yeah, I fucking did,” he concedes, a wicked gleam in his eyes as he stares down the barrel of his own gun. “You know why?”

I shake my head, closing my eyes against the sound of his voice. The same voice that brings safety and comfort. The one who makes me feel like a real human being and not a defective replica.

Like a man fully disturbed, he takes a step towards me. I back away from him, but he doesn’t stop. He steps into me until the barrel of the gun presses right to the center of his forehead, and my heart shatters at the sight of it glinting against the skin.

“I’m so fucking sick of pretending like you’re not mine,” he grits like it’s ripping him open just as much as it is me. “You can hate me all you want, but he’s still out there, and I promise you, he’s a whole lot more fucked up than you or I could ever imagine. I’ll be fucking damned if I let him get to you again. If that makes me the villain in your story, then put a goddamned bullet in mybrain right here, little devil. Make sure I’m fucking dead this time.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out but a quiet whimper. Tears cloud my vision, and though I hate them, I’m powerless to stop their descent.

“It’s fucked up. It’s toxic. I don’t give a fuck. If craving you so fucking violently that I can’t live in a world without you in it makes me the bad guy, shoot me.”

I hatehim. I hate him for who he is. How he can be the monster in the dark that comforts me. I hate myself for still being so in love with him, it aches in my chest. I hate that I can’t outrun my past.

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