Page 71 of Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva 3)

Silence reigns, thick and immutable.

But I know what I’m supposed to say next, just like we’re reading lines from a play.

“What happened to Sergio?” I ask softly.

Dante doesn’t say anything for a long time. I realize suddenly that I’m reaching forward now with my free hand to wipe the tear away from the edge of his beard. I feel the dampness on my finger and the heat of his breath. I’m barely aware of what I’m doing. That feeling that everything is scripted, everything is predetermined—it’s so powerful that I can’t possibly resist. I wasmeantto be here, hearing this, touching him.

I scoot closer. We’re just a few inches apart now, seated on the thick white rug in this grand bedroom. I can feel his body heat emanating from him. And that smell—so different than Leo’s. Dante smells grittier, sweatier, muskier. There’s a raw manliness to it, like he just killed a sabertooth tiger with a club on his way over here. He’s a feral beast. The lines on his face are the same as all his brothers’, but his eyes are wilder, his mouth is twitchier and more savage. None of that makes sense but it’s so unbelievably true that I can’t help but think it. It’s just what he is. He is pure wilderness, through and through.

“What happened to Sergio?” I repeat.

I know what the answer to my question is going to be. But when Dante finally opens his mouth and says it, it hits me in the face like a slap nonetheless.

“He’s dead,” Dante says in a half gasp, half moan. “My father and brother are both fucking dead.”

I take a deep breath.

Five or six minutes have passed since he first handed me the knife, since I first hatched the plan that’s about to unfurl itself. The climactic moment has to happen now, while he’s distracted and looking away, or it will never happen at all.

So I do it.

I free the knife from its clasp with the press of the button, shove Dante onto his back, leap on top of him, and bring the blade to his throat all in one motion. I don’t know whether I truly caught him by surprise or if he’s just too drunk to give a damn, but either way, it works.

I could kill him right now.

Do it. Do it.

The only way out is through.

He’s drunk and distracted and teary-eyed and I have his weapon in my grasp, pressed against the vulnerable flesh of his exposed throat, so the only thing left to do is what I’ve planned on doing from the start: slice his throat open, grab the car keys I saw jangling in his pocket, and get the fuck out of this nightmare castle. All the conversation, the lulling him into a false sense of security, has led to this, my first and only real window of opportunity to escape.

But now that I’m here …

I can’t.

He must see my hesitation, because the shock that filled him at first turns into the saddest laughter I have ever heard in my life. It starts as just a small chuckle, like he can’t help himself, but as I watch with the knife held in my trembling fist, his laughter grows and grows, until he’s full-on belly laughing, cackling like a loon. I’m riding him like a bucking bull, one knee planted on either side of his torso. But when his head jerks with each bale of laughter, the blade draws a thin red line against his skin.

Finally, his laughter settles down, and he fixes me with an amused stare. “You planned this the whole time, eh?” he says. “Well done, princess. Well fucking done. I warned the others you had more to you than met the eye. Look how right I was. Look what it’s going to cost me.”

I swallow past the knot in my throat. “I have to do this.”

He nods as much as he can. “Oh, I know. I’m the last person on earth who’s going to blame you. You do what you have to do.” His eyes flutter closed. So calm. So stoic.

Tick. Tock.The clock on the wall tolls out each passing second. I do not move.

Dante’s eyes flicker open a few moments later. “Cold feet, I see.”

“No.”

“No? Then do the damn thing, princess.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“What?”

“Princess. I’m not your fucking princess.”

“You are wrong there,” he murmurs.

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