Page 88 of Beautiful Sins

“I have to leave LA.”

“Is your insurance in London?” She frowns. “I’m sure they can deal with it from here—”

“It’s not about insurance.”

Her elbow leans on the edge of my bed, and I get a hit of her familiar scent. That, plus her closeness, send a pang of longing through me.

“Okay. I have some shows lined up, but I’ll cancel them if I need to.” She pulls out her phone. “As long as we need to get this figured out…”

I push the phone away. “I can’t take you with me.”

The phone slips out of her hands as she realizes my intention. “What do you mean? You said you wanted to move on. There are other good things.”

“Things like Kings?” I glance down at the book. “He burned it to the ground tonight.”

She grabs my face in her hands, lifts my gaze to hers. “I’ve spent my life hiding from my past. I’m not hiding from my future.” The cuff shines on her wrist. “I know it kills you that you can’t control him—”

“This isn’t a joke, isn’t a game!” I’m shouting now, hoarsely. “This is real life.”

“I know it is. That’s why I’m not leaving.”

I think of the news I got about my parents, that they weren’t trying to escape the Ivanov’s business but to reinvest in it.

I wanted to deny it, but tonight in the ambulance, I felt the tiniest flint spark deep in my chest. The part of me built for survival woke up for the first time in a long time, possibly since my parents died.

If they were something other than the saints I made them out to be, then part of me is, too.

“But I am,” I say finally.

I was never meant to be a man who builds things…

I’m destined to be a man who destroys them.

I’m no better than Mischa Ivanov, only different.

Raegan’s lips part in disbelief. Her eyes work over mine, emotion spilling over, but beneath, she’s resolute. “In Denver, you gave me this, and you told me it meant you’d never go.” She reaches for the bracelet on her wrist, waiting for me to tell her I meant it. That I love her, and that our love matters more than anything else in this world.

“I was wrong.”

The words rip from my chest, and saying them is itself an act of destruction.

I see it on her face, in the way her shoulders tighten.

I’m hurting her. The person I love most is sitting in front of me and I’m destroying her.

The pain in my chest is so sharp, so sudden, I wonder if this is what a heart attack feels like.

Fucking stop this, a voice demands. But I close it in an iron fist.

Something lands on the bed next to me. With a last look, Raegan rises from her chair and speaks to the nurse before starting down the hall.

I can’t breathe again, but there’s nothing the machines can do for me.

My gaze lowers to the shimmering circle next to me on the bed.

The inscription stands in relief against the gold.

My Queen.

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