Page 39 of Crimson Curse
The faith in my words surprises me. I believe in versions of him that I'm not sure he knows exist and see possibilities he's never allowed himself to imagine. In my eyes, he's not just the head of the Zorin Bratva. Not just his mother's son, carrying forward a legacy built on blood and fear. He's a man who might someday help me paint stars on nursery walls.
I set my notebook on the window ledge and step closer to him, close enough that I can see the flecks of silver in his ice-gray eyes, feel the heat radiating from his skin. His arms tighten around me, his chin brushing the top of my head. My hair grazes the stubble along his jaw, and I breathe in the scent that has become home to me.
This love was never meant for me. Not with a man like him in a world carved out of violence and betrayal. Yet it blooms anyway, stubborn and unrelenting, growing between gunshots and strategy meetings, rooting itself in the stolen moments when Daniil looks at me as though I am his whole world.
That fragile peace lasts only until midnight. Then the night splits open, the crack of a gunshot tearing through the stillness and echoing across the estate’s front hall.
My body reacts before my mind catches up. Every muscle goes rigid with terror, and I scream before I can stop myself, myhands clutching Daniil's arm as my heart hammers against my ribs like it's trying to escape my chest.
Daniil is in motion before the sound even fades, vaulting from the bed and shifting from lover to weapon in a single heartbeat. The shot came from the main entrance. Someone has breached our home.
He’s already moving down the hallway, his body a shield between me and danger, his grip unyielding on the gun he pulled from the nightstand. His eyes are cold, lethal, every inch the man the Bratva fears. The man he was before I softened some of his edges, and he allowed himself to imagine nurseries and normal lives.
Gunfire rattles beyond the walls, sharp cracks that split the night and reverberate through the estate. The air vibrates with the clash of Daniil’s men holding the line in a brutal symphony of shouts, metal, and bullets.
“Stay back,” he orders.
Before I can answer, the foyer doors slam open with a crash that reverberates through the halls like thunder. And then Viktor bursts in.
I know instantly that we’ve reached the end of whatever game we’ve been playing. He’s wild-eyed, armed, and bleeding. His shirt hangs loose, torn and smeared with crimson across his side, his chest heaving in ragged bursts that scream of adrenaline and desperation.
But it’s his face that freezes me. It’s not just rage. It’s something shattered and wild, a madness unchained from anything human.
His eyes lock on Daniil first, then slide to me, and I see exactly what he plans to do. The hatred burning there isn't just for his cousin anymore. It's for me, too. For the life I represent, and the weakness he thinks I've created in the man he considers his greatest rival.
“You took everything,” Viktor growls, his voice shaking with fury that runs so deep I can feel it across the distance between us. “Everything that should have been mine. The throne. The respect. The fear. The woman.”
His gun glints in the chandelier light, and I can see his finger resting against the trigger. Three days of hiding, bleeding, and building his rage to this fever pitch. Whatever hole he crawled into after the intake plant didn't offer healing, only time for his hatred to metastasize into deadly purpose.
Terror freezes my blood, but underneath it burns rage. This man has already taken so much from us. He's stolen our peace, our safety, and our ability to plan a future without looking over our shoulders. He's turned our love into a weapon he thinks he can use against us.
“Now I take you,” he continues, his voice breaking on the words.
The world narrows to this one moment. The cousins face each other across the marble floor. Twenty feet of empty space between them, and me standing behind Daniil, visible enough for Viktor to target.
Daniil raises his gun, his body wound tight, ready to snap forward. I can see the calculations running through his mind. I can almost hear him measuring distance, angle, and Viktor's obvious injury.
“You should have stayed dead to me, Viktor,” Daniil says, each word quiet and deadly.
Viktor laughs, but it's not a sound of humor. It's jagged, fractured, and torn from somewhere inside him that no longer cares about survival, consequences, or the future. “You think you’ll win? You think she makes you untouchable?”
His eyes cut toward me, and my blood turns to ice. I can see the plan forming behind his gaze, the terrible logic of it. He can't beat Daniil in a straight fight, but he can destroy him by taking away the thing he loves most.
“She makes you weak,” Viktor finishes.
He's right, and we all know it. Before me, Daniil would have killed him without hesitation or an ounce of regret. Before me, he was a machine built for violence, efficient and merciless. Now he's a man with everything to lose.
Viktor moves faster than I expect from someone bleeding and running on fumes. But his gun doesn't swing toward me. It stays trained on Daniil's chest, and time slows to a crawl.
I can see everything with crystalline clarity. The slight tremor in Viktor's hand from blood loss and adrenaline. The way Daniil's body tenses as he realizes what's happening. The distance between Viktor's gun and Daniil's heart, the split second that will determine if I lose the man I love.
I can't bear it. I can't watch him die. And I can't live in a world without him. On instinct, without thought or any consideration for consequences, I dive in front of Daniil.
The nursery flashes through my mind. Unfinished sketches, dreams that will never become reality, and a future that existsonly in pencil lines and desperate hope. The life growing inside me, too small to feel but already loved beyond measure.
The shot rings out, deafening in the enclosed space until it fills every corner of my world. Fire blooms through my side, scorching pain that steals my breath and sends me staggering. My hands fly to the wound and come away slick with blood, red and terrifying.
I hear Daniil shout my name, torn from the deepest part of his soul. His voice breaks in ways I've never heard before, and I realize that my pain is nothing compared to what he's feeling right now.
