Page 53 of Beautifully Damned
“Roman!” Lola’s scream splits the air. “He’s hit!”
Lola’s on the floor beside Mikhail, sobbing, inconsolable. Her hands tremble as they hover above his bloodied abdomen, not knowing where to touch, afraid to hurt him more. Mikhail’s eyes are half-lidded, skin pale.
Before this moment, I asked myself if I even loved him. I knew I cared. I knew he was mine, my blood, but love?
But watching him bleed out, I realize something brutal and terrifying—if I lose him, I’ll lose my fucking mind. I don’t know what that means. But if that isn’t love, what the hell is?
“Put pressure on it,” I bark at Lola, already dialing our emergency medical team. “Hold it down.”
She obeys instantly, hands pressing against the wound, sobs caught in her throat.
We don’t have time to risk a hospital with this kind of injury, we need our emergency crew right now.
Fifteen minutes later, they’re here.
Mikhail’s in surgery in the underground emergency unit we built beneath the estate. Lola’s on the floor, head in her hands. Every thirty minutes, Sergei comes and makes her drink water like that’ll stop her from dying of heartbreak.
I don’t leave her. It’s what my brother would want.
“You were right,” I say, eyes fixed on the wall.
She doesn’t respond.
“You did the right thing. What I couldn’t.”
“What?” she breathes, barely audible.
“I’m proud of you.” The words taste like rust. “You did what I couldn’t. I let myself have a weakness. I thought I could control it. I thought it wouldn’t cost me anything.”
Ayla. She’s the weakness. A mistake I won’t repeat. No matter how much I want to drown in that mistake and never resurface.
“It won’t happen again,” I mutter.
But my praise means nothing to Lola at this moment. She doesn’t care.
“Your brother…” Her voice breaks, before she forces the words out. “He’s all I want.”
“He’s strong,” I say roughly. “Stupidly strong.”
He’ll survive.
He has to.
Or I will burn this city to the ground and piss on its ashes.
Silence stretches between us until the doctors come back. Their expressions aren’t grim. One of them says, “It missed all the vital organs. He’s lucky. It could’ve been worse.”
Relief hits me like a hammer. The kind of relief I only remember feeling once before—when my father died.
I help Lola up, guiding her to Mikhail’s side. She rests her head on his arm and starts talking. She talks and talks, but he’s unconscious. Still, she talks like he can hear every word.
It’s too intimate for me to keep watching.
After making sure he’s stable, I leave. I let my feet lead me one last time. One final fucking time.
They take me to Ayla’s bedroom.
This is the last time I follow what the jagged stone in my chest wants.
