Page 179 of Ruined Vows
“You good?” he asks.
I wipe my bloody hands on Milan’s jacket, lying on the floor.
“I am now.” I give him a wry smile.
Dragan and Luka rejoin us as we leave. No one speaks because there’s nothing to say.
We leave Milan’s corpse behind—unmarked, broken, and nameless—a lesson for the others who might have followed Milan—a message to others of how traitors die.
Bianca’s waiting. I have a mansion that has become a home because of the woman inside it.
And this time, I have no intention of making her wait.
Bianca
I know the sound of the engine before I see the car.
It’s past midnight. The estate is quiet. Most of the staff are asleep, and the guards are ghosts in the halls.
I’m pacing the front corridor barefoot because I couldn’t stay still. Not while I knew he was out there.
Not while I didn’t know if he was coming back.
The tires crunch over gravel, steady and slow. The Hummer pulls up to the gate and rolls through without pause.
No alarms. No sirens.
Just him.
I reach the front steps just as the door opens. Luka steps out first, then Dragan, then David—silent, efficient, all of them fading into the shadows like the ghosts they are.
And then he’s there.
Vukan.
Walking toward me like nothing matters but this. His shirt’s bloodstained. His knuckles are raw. A bruise darkens his jaw, and a tear in the fabric at his shoulder. But his eyes are locked on me.
Like I’m gravity.
Like I’m home.
I don’t run to him. I don’t cry. I don’t scream at him for making me wait, for making me wonder if he’d be another ghost I’d have to bury.
I just stand still. And he comes to me.
“Is it done?” I ask.
He nods once. “Yes.”
“How bad?” I asked upon seeing blood on his shirt.
He shrugs. “Not mine.”
I don’t know if I want to kiss him or hit him.
But when he steps close, when his hands find my face—rough, trembling, still stained with what he left behind—I let myself breathe.
“You came back,” I whisper.
