Page 198 of Inevitable Endings
The first one catches the man who mocked her legs. Right between the eyes. His head jerks back like a puppet with its strings cut.
The second bullet takes the one who called her fuck-me heels. His body slumps instantly, blood trailing down his cheek like a weeping god.
The third? The one who compared her to her mother?
I shot him through the throat.
He gurgles. Falls sideways. Chokes on his own blood as the air fills with a wet, sick sound.
Three dead.
Three warnings.
Still, I haven’t spoken.
No one else moves.
The rest of the room, these men who lead dynasties, who control cities, who have made murder a language, look at me like they’re seeing death for the first time. Not because they haven’t seen it before.
But because now it’s personal.
Because now it has a face.
Mine.
Lorenzo’s lip trembles.
The rest of the Vor v Zakone sit like they’ve already been sentenced.
Because they have.
And they know it.
I scan their faces, now twelve monsters who thought they ruled something eternal.
They don’t look like rulers now.
They look like animals waiting for slaughter.
I let the silence breathe for a few more seconds. I want it to rot in their chests. I want it to settle behind their ribs and shake loose their arrogance.
Then I speak.
“Vy zabyli, kto ya.”
You forgot who I am.
The words slither across the stone like a curse. My Russian is low, guttural, colder than the barrel still warm in my hand. My voice doesn’t rise, it drops. And somehow, that’s worse.
Some of them nod without meaning to. Small, twitching movements. Fear leaking out of them in instinct.
Lorenzo flinches when I take a step forward. The sweat on his forehead catches the flicker of the light above him. His skin is pale. His hand is still close to his gun, but he won’t draw it.
“You tried to write me out of the story,” I say in English, eyes sweeping the table. “You dug a grave with my name on it and pissed on the dirt. And then you sat here in your pretty suits and your fat fucking rings and told yourselves I was gone.”
I walk between the chairs now. One step. Then another.
No one moves.
