Page 149 of Ruby Mercy

Her pink lips purse. For a second, I think she's going to argue with me. Then, surprisingly, she nods. "You never looked at me the way you looked at her. I could tell. I can still tell. You love her."

Being honest may be something I'm trying out, but I feel no compulsion at all to confess any feelings to Viktoria. I don’t take her bait.

"Is there a reason you came over here?" I ask again.

"Oh, right," she says, making a show of remembering something I know she never forgot. "I came to say I know where Rayne is."

My stomach bottoms out. Despite the fact I'm at her father's party and there are enough Kozlov bodyguards here to make my life inconvenient for a time, I grab Viktoria's arm.

She doesn’t even flinch. "Relax, I didn't do anything. I was just a witness. Sasha can't say the same, though."

"Where is she?" I growl. “I do not have the time for your games.”

Viktoria turns sideways and points at the only set of closed French doors on the opposite wall. "Sasha followed her in there a few minutes ago. You better hurry if you want to—"

I don't hear the rest of what she says because I'm already tearing past her and shoving through the crowd. I hear people complaining about how rough I'm being, but I couldn't care less.

I have to get to Rayne.

"Kirill!" Leonid calls. "Where's the fire? Come have a drink with us."

I don't look to see who "us" is. It doesn't matter. Only one person does.

Rayne.

53

KIRILL

Rayne.

Rayne.

Rayne.

Her name is the steady drum of my heartbeat. It's the blood thrumming through my veins right now.

If anything happens to her, I’ll—well, I'm not sure what I'll do. Or who I'll kill.

I storm towards the door, narrowly avoiding a run-in with Natalia as she comes out of the kitchen carrying another tray of food. The tray slips out of her hands and clatters to the floor, sending food debris in every direction. I crunch through the mess and slam the heel of my palm into the narrow opening between the two doors.

They burst open, banging off the dark walls within and bouncing back so hard they almost close again, but my body keeps that from happening.

I’m in the doorway, letting my eyes adjust to the dark inside. A command for Sasha to get his fucking hands off of my woman is on the tip of my tongue…

Just as Rayne grabs a lamp on the table next to her and smashes it across the back of Sasha’s head.

“Get off of me, you pervert!” Rayne shrieks, bringing the lamp down a second time.

I think I see blood spray through the air, but then the lamp flickers out and it’s hard to see anything at all.

What isn’t hard to see is the image burned in my brain. I only had one second to see what Sasha was doing to Rayne before she fought him off, but I’ll never forget it.

His body pressed against hers. His hands pinning her arms down. His mouth on her neck.

“Mudak!” I roar, tearing into the little room.

He’s bent over with both hands pressed to the back of his head, a string of incoherent curses pouring out of his mouth. I grab him by the back of his suit and hurl him through the doors with the power of pure adrenaline.

---