Page 54 of Beautifully Damned
Because next—
I’m burning her and her entire bloodline down to nothing but ash.
?Chapter XXXIV?
Ayla
Shame claws at my chest. Shame, and fear, and sadness—all of it sinking its teeth in at once.
I’m curled up on the floor, knees to my chest, arms wrapped tight around my legs. I can’t stop heaving. The tears keep coming, and they won’t stop. This is the most traumatic thing that’s ever happened to me.
And yet... I feel guilty.
As if it’s my fault.
If someone got hurt—I will never forgive myself. I’ll rot in guilt. I can’t live like this, I don’t want to either. I’d rather die.
The door creaks open, and Elena walks in. I bury my face deeper between my knees. I don’t want to see her. I’m too ashamed.
She is one of them. One of the ones pointing guns at my family. And still, I consider her a friend. God help me, I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m scared for my family. But I’m scared for the Bratva too.
I’m a mess of contradictions.
Elena sits beside me, her body brushing mine. She starts cleaning the wound on my arm. It’s shallow, but it still burns like hell.
“It’s just a scratch,” she mutters, carefully placing a bandage over it.
“Are you hurt?” I sob.
She shakes her head. But her expression... it’s grim. My stomach turns.
“Is anyone else?” I whisper. “Roman? Lola? Mikhail?”
Please, no. Not Roman.
I don’t hate Lola. Not for what she did. I’m grateful, actually, she stopped it before it turned into something worse. A massacre. She pressed pause on the bloodbath we were heading toward.
But Roman hasn’t even checked on me once. Of course he hasn’t. I’m nothing to him.
Elena’s eyes darken. “Mikhail, hurt at second round,” she says quietly.
“How is he?” I scream, shaking.
Elena sighs, pain carved deep into her face. “He’s in surgery. No one knows anything yet.”
I break completely, and Elena wraps her arms around me. For the first time since I’ve known her, she cries too. We cry together. In silence. In pain. In helpless, useless grief.
“I’m sorry,” I say over and over. “I’m so sorry, Elena.”
She strokes my hair gently. “Not your fault,” she whispers. “Our world. This is what it does.”
I pull back to look at her. “Elena… my father made an offer. A good one. Roman refused it.”
“I know,” she says softly. “Word got around.”
“Why?” My voice cracks. “Why, Elena? This could’ve ended. All of it. Why wouldn’t he take the deal?”
She shrugs, because there’s no answer she can give me. No one knows what’s in Roman’s head. And so we stay there for nearly an hour, crying into each other, clinging to what’s left of our sanity. She tells me stories from when they were kids. How she used to change Mikhail’s diapers. How she’d put him to bed when his mother was too high to care.
