Page 47 of Ruin

“However long it takes, a month, year, maybe forever,” I shrug. “However long it takes to find the saboteur.”

“You’re not going to change your mind,” Viktor pushes a breath through his teeth, shaking his head again. I shake my head once, “When do we leave?”

“Tonight,” I nod, more to myself than to him. “Now,” I hum, “yes. Now. Get them both, and leave now, there’s no time like the present. We have shit handled here. Go.”

Viktor shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and with unspoken words staying that way, he nods firmly and crosses to Konstantin, halting his terrorising of another mover. Konstantin’s blue eyes come to mine, over Viktor’s shoulder, and then he, too, nods, the both of them turning away and leaving out of a side door.

Dima steps up beside me, his silent presence comforting as my chest clenches a little. I’ve spent the last few years separating myself from these friendships, trying to keep them safer, less connected, but they’ve still always been there. Whenever I needed them. Now three of them are just… gone.

The rest of the evening passes without incident; the crates are packed and counted, the final door closing on the last lorry.

And I watch as it drives away, Dima at my back, Charlie off to one side.

“You got enough information, monitoring that?” I ask lazily, but I’m irritated, being babysat.

Charlie’s green eyes sliding to mine, he nods without words, hands slipping into the pockets of his leather pants, unlit cigarette tucked behind his ear.

I glance over my shoulder to Dima, jerking my chin towards the car, and without hesitation, his footsteps crunch across gravel, the door to the vehicle opening and closing.

“It wasn’t someone here tonight,” Charlie rasps, turning to look at me, bare skin of his upper body glistening beneath the moonlight. “You’re going to have to look closer to home,” he rumbles, but I can’t think straight, staring at his wounded face.

I don’t know what happened to him. The man’s always cut up and covered in blood, but the scratch marks down his cheek, his eye, bother me. Plus, they make me think of sex, and jealousy tears through me with the possessive need to dominate him. Mark him with me too, so I’m also on his skin.

“Kazimir,” he rumbles, forcing my name from his tongue with something like a plea. “Listen to me,” he says, and my knees threaten to buckle. “Someone is trying to set you up.”

I blink at him, letting the words sink in, frowning, “It’s not that serious,” I snort. “We’ll find whoever the fucker is an-”

“No,” he shakes his head, turning to face me, “I think you’ve got a bigger problem than you think,” tilting his head back, he looks up towards the black night sky, too many clouds to see any stars. “It feels deeper,” he rumbles, dropping his head back down to look at me with serious eyes. “Think about it,” he murmurs, “someone that knows everything, every plan, every shipment, every drop off, every day, time. Whereyouare,” he swallows hard, voice barely audible from overuse.

“Why would someone fuck up operations from the inside, and then make you all not want to work with me?”

“Because if you’re to blame, the villain can take you out and swoop in to be the hero.” His hand lifts towards his neck, fingers fanning as if to massage his throat, but he stops, dropping his hand. “Look at your most trusted and start there,” he rasps quietly.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, stopping and starting all over again, but I can’t tear my eyes off of the man trying to help me. He stares back, head cocked, chin dipped, eyes wide.

“Why are you trying to help me?” it’s a whisper, the way the words curl from my mouth like smoke. “Why don’t you just write me off like the rest of them?”

His gaze holds mine, and he doesn’t blink, “Because I’m not like everyone else,” he rasps thickly, and it feels like more, the way he speaks, stares.

I swallow around the lump in my throat, taking a single step forward, and he doesn’t back away, letting me close part of the distance, “Charli-”

My phone rings again making me curse, and I pull it from my pocket as Charlie takes a step back from me, turning my back to him to step out of listening range.

I move back closer towards the warehouse and stab the answer button as an unknown number dances across the phone screen, snarling into the phone,“What?”

A wave of heat slams into me, throwing me across the empty lot. Head hitting the ground hard, ears ringing. I blink hard, my eyes watering, red and orange dancing above me, blooming across the night’s sky as I pry my eyes open, staring up. Arms limp at my sides, I force my fingers into the damp gravel beneath me, every bone in my body screaming as I try to sit myself upright, air whooshing out of my lungs as I drop back down, spine slamming into the earth.

Big hands force their way under my arms, long fingers curling up and over the front of them, digging into my collarbones. Lifting my upper body from the ground, dragging me back, away from the heat.

I blink, Dima’s small brown eyes are wide, panicked, staring into mine, but the hands are still there, solid, and Dima’s are cupping my face, coming away with blood. He spits words that I can’t hear as he lifts my feet, pain bolting up my legs, shooting through my spine and injecting agony into the base of my skull.

My head drops back as I’m lifted into the air, neck arching, skull too heavy for me to try and hold it up. That’s when I catch sight of him. My white-haired demon-boy. His violent green eyes are not on mine, his head angled back over his shoulder as he and Dima move me between them, but I stare up at him all the same, until my vision goes black. Ears bursting with a high-pitched buzzing, pain ricocheting through my skull like a boom, and I wonder if it’s the sound of death.

Flies readying to feast.

Chapter22

Charlie

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