Page 173 of Ruined Vows
I stalk forward, calm and cold, pistol aimed between his eyes.
He scrambles, blood pouring down his arm. Tries to crawl. Tries to beg.
“You missed your chance,” I say, steady. “Now you pay.”
He opens his mouth?—
I fire.
One clean shot. Silence. I lower my gun and breathe out slowly. It’s done.
I raise the mic to my mouth. “Target down. Repeat—Radovan’s down.”
“Copy that,” Luka answers, relief sharp across the comm.
Dragan’s voice follows. “Extraction in five.”
I don’t look back because Radovan’s not my future.
Bianca is.
55
VUKAN
ANOTHER NOTCH
Ifind her in the garden, barefoot in the dew-kissed grass, her dress clinging to her skin like moonlight made of sun rays. When she sees me, the relief that lit across her face undid something inside me. She runs, and I catch her, hold her, breathe her in like I’d been starving for her scent.
“It’s done,” I murmur into her hair. “Radovan is dead.”
She pulls back just enough to see my face. “Then it’s over.”
I wanted to say yes. Gods, I wanted to give her that peace. To fall into her arms and pretend the war had ended with Radovan’s last breath. But I can’t. Not truthfully.
Instead, I kiss her—deep, hungry, and grateful. We stand wrapped in each other, the garden spinning around us, a moment carved out of a bloodstained world. But peace is a fragile illusion.
“It should be over,” I said against her temple. “But I don’t think it is.”
She stiffens just slightly. “You think Milan will retaliate?”
“I don’t know.” I pull away, just enough to meet her eyes. “Radovan acted first. He made the first cut. But Milan… he’s not the kind to let a wound heal without tearing at the scab. He’s proud. Angry. And worse—he feels slighted. As twisted as Radovan was, they were bound by hatred.”
Bianca nods slowly, but her jaw is tight. “How close were they?”
I shake my head. “Close enough that Radovan’s death might feel like another slight.”
She swallows hard. “So we wait.”
I look out across the horizon. The night is quiet, too quiet. As if the world holds its breath. “Milan’s not like Radovan. He doesn’t throw tantrums. He waits. He waits, and he’ll strike when it matters. This… this could be just the beginning of a larger problem.”
“But we’ll face it together,” she says, threading her fingers through mine.
I look down at her hand, then up into the eyes of the only person who ever made the war inside me feel worth surviving.
“Always.”
But even as I say it, I feel the weight of something coming. Like a storm is just beyond the hills, but gaining ground. Radovan fell. But Milan… Milan might burn the whole world to avenge him, and he’ll try to end me and claim what he feels is his.
