Page 33 of Beautifully Deranged

For years, I’ve been running. From the Bratva. From the truth that no matter how fast I go, I’ll never outrun my blood, my nature, this violent, bloodthirsty beast curled inside my ribs. Running from her. From the fact that I love her in a way no sane man should. I’m done running. My hand moves before I even think. Fingers wrap around her throat, not to crush, but to pin her harder to the wall.

I slam my mouth against hers, kissing her like I’m trying to break her. Like I want her to feel what she’s done to me. The chaos she’s unleashed. The monster she’s been pulling at the chains of for far too long.

She’s hard, unyielding. I rip my mouth away, hand still locked around her throat. "You fucked up. You fucked up when you wrapped a beast of a man around your pretty little pinky finger," I hiss. "You fucked up because now, Lola—there is no escaping this. I'm pulling you into the dark with me. You wantedto see the man you call yours? The man you thought you could walk away from?" I let out a low, humorless laugh. “Well, now you will. And now, the opportunity to run is gone.”

I lied to myself. Said I could let her go like it was nothing. But a mere few hours without her tore me apart. Made me realize what letting go really means, watching her slip into someone else’s bed. Damn it, she’s right. I was a coward. And it will always be my biggest regret that it took breaking her to see it. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to her.

"And here I thought I was the only unhinged one," she taunts. I shove her harder against the door.

"You think this scares me?" she murmurs. "You think you scare me?"

"I should."

"You don’t."

I let go of her throat only to grab her jaw, tilting her face up, making sure she sees every piece of the madness she’s carved into my bones.

“No one will touch you now," I promise. "No one will breathe next to you. Not unless they want to fucking die. I’ll no longer protect you by keeping you hidden," I growl. "No, Lola. No more hiding. You’ll be on my arm for the world to see. They’ll know exactly who you belong to." I inhale her like she’s the last clean breath I’ll ever take. "And if anyone so much as looks at you the wrong way—" I kiss the side of her head gently. "I will crush them, Lola. I will break their fucking bones."

She’s my Lola. My cruel little queen. I realize now that hiding her was never protecting her, it was just keeping me from truly having her. One night without her drove me insane. A lifetime without her? She’d unleash havoc on the world.

I can’t let Lola remain in the shadows anymore. Every moment without her drives me closer to madness. Claiming her openly might put her at risk, but that just means I’ll fight every bastardwho dares threaten her. I’ve made up my mind. I’ll protect her with my life. No matter what.

It’s selfish.

But it’s the only decision I can make.

I won’t shy away from exposing the details of my work. She’ll catch on soon enough. And if she overheard the full conversation I had with Roman, she already knows something’s off.

"You need to promise me that you won’t cry when you see the bodies or scream when you see blood. Because that’s where the man who calls you his addiction lives. In the violence. In the ruin. You’ve only seen the surface. You don’t know what you’ve chained yourself to yet."

"You think I’m light?" she mocks. "You think I don’t know what darkness is?"

"Mikhail," she murmurs, biting my bottom lip and tugging it, "you have no fucking idea."

?Chapter Sixteen?

Lola

Obsession is a sickness.A parasite that’s sunk its teeth into my brain and refuses to let go. I feel it in my bones, in my bloodstream. My fingers twitch, itching to open my laptop and stalk the cameras in his apartment, to give in, to drown in whatever scraps of him I can find.

I let the hunger burn through me instead, let it sear from the inside out. Because this? This is withdrawal. This is breaking an addiction, and I will not relapse. I will not chase him. I refuse to waste another second feeding the monster that is Mikhail.

Yesterday, I chose my words carefully, knowing which ones would claw at his darkest insecurities. Maybe that makes me cruel. I don’t care. He deserved it. He wanted to be my protector, my savior, my executioner? Then he should’ve been strong enough to handle the truth. Instead, he pushed me aside. Hid me away like a shameful secret, as if I couldn’t handle the blood on his hands, like I haven’t always known something about him was off. That phone call only confirmed it. Mikhail is involved in something shady.

A gang? A cult? I don’t know.

But he should have realized long ago that I was never pure, never some delicate light. My own father warned him, for God’s sake. I would’ve taken him, darkness and all. Kissed his bruises. Licked his wounds. Bled for him. But he shut me out.

The canvas I’ve been working on flies across the room, a smear of wet paint splashing onto the floor. It lands near theportrait of Mikhail, the one I took down and covered, no longer able to look at it. I feel like I’m suffocating inside my own skin.

I’ve been wasting time, complaining, whining about wanting freedom, about cutting myself off from my father’s money and his world. But what the hell have I done to change that?

Not enough.

That ends now.

Commissions. More than ever. I’m accepting every request, drowning myself in work. Letting exhaustion anchor me, keeping me from spiraling into thoughts of Mikhail.

---