Page 59 of Beautifully Deranged

Still nothing from Mikhail.

“The mistress vanished. Poof. Gone. As for my father—death was too easy for him. I wanted him to rot. Sergei got me NDMA. I fed it to him. Little by little. In his tea.”

Mikhail reaches out to catch me when I start to sway.

“He got liver cancer a couple months later. Karma. He lived, though. Which worked better for me—because if he’d died, I’d have been a rich orphan with no access to the fortune.”

I look up at Mikhail, waiting. Waiting for him to pull back. To see disgust in his eyes. Instead, he looks... hungry. Possessive. Relieved?

“You see now?” I whisper. “I’m not good. I never was. I let that rage take me over and I liked it. I watched him waste away, and it made me feel powerful.”

A tear slips free. “I am proud. I’m a goddamn storm of flaws. You shouldn’t love me.”

“You think this makes me want you less?”

His lips graze my cheek. “You call it rage. I call it fire. ”

His mouth brushes my jaw. My throat.

“I’m not a good person, Mikhail.”

He pulls me tighter. “I don’t want good, I want you. You love. You protect. You destroy for the people you care about. And I’d burn the world to match that.”

I collapse into him, and for once, I don’t feel broken or weird. I feel understood.

?Chapter Twenty eight?

Mikhail

Lola said yes to breakfast at Roman’s. Don’t ask me why; hell if I know what goes through her head sometimes. It’s early. It smells like fresh bread and coffee. She’s across from Roman, legs crossed, cup in hand like she’s done this since birth.

She fits too well. It pisses me off a little.

I’m sitting beside her, pretending I’m not watching her like she’s the center of my universe.

“So,” Roman says, cutting into his omelet, “when’d you start painting?”

She stirs her tea. “Seven.”

“Shit. That young?”

She gives a little nod. “My mom got me an easel. Birthday gift.”

There’s a look on her face I don’t like—too soft. Too far away. She misses her mother.

“And you stuck with it?”

“When you love something, you don’t drop it just because someone says it’s a waste.”

Roman scowls. “Someone told you that?”

“A few someones.”

I grip my mugs tighter. Don’t ask who, or I’ll find them. Don’t care how long ago it was.

“Whoever it was,” Roman says, mouth full, “they were fucking morons.”

She laughs, quiet and sweet.She’s relaxed with him. Comfortable. Smiling. And I can’t decide if I want to drag her out of this room or just sit here and watch her laugh again.

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