Page 69 of Scarlet Chains
Time to kill.
Time to become the monster I’ve always been, if that’s what it takes to save the angel he’s trying to steal from me.
But first, I have to find the perfect moment. The single instant when Stanley’s attention wavers, when the knife moves away from her throat by even a fraction of an inch.
I meet Ilona’s eyes one more time, trying to communicate everything I can’t say aloud.
Trust me.
Forgive me.
Wait for my signal.
Then I prepare to do what I do best.
End lives that threaten what I love.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Osip
Give me a gap, pizda.
Just give me a fucking gap and I’ll end you!
But the bastard isn’t moving, and I’m screwed. All the years of honed violence, and here I stand, at the mercy of this motherfucker and that single blade.
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK!
“So sad,” Stanley sneers, his grip tightening on the knife handle. “A reunion of star-crossed lovers. Too bad it’s going to be short-lived.”
The blade shifts against Ilona’s throat, and another drop of blood wells up, ruby-bright against her pale skin. My hands clench into fists so tight my knuckles crack like gunshots in the silence. I’ve killed men for less than this. I’ve ended lives for looking at me wrong, for speaking out of turn, for breathing the wrong way in my presence.
But now, when it matters most, I’m fucking helpless.
“My life for hers,” I say abruptly, the words falling from my lips without hesitation, without thought, without fear. “Let her go and take me.”
Stanley’s laugh is guttural, bordering on insanity, the sound of a man who’s crossed lines that can never be uncrossed. “Give me one reason why that’s a good deal! Why would I accept that when I could get rid of her AND you.” His eyes glitter with malicious triumph. “Just like I did with Galina.”
The world stops.
He what???
The room around us seems to spin as the blood drains from my face, reality reshaping itself around this one devastating revelation.
Pizda!
So he’s the one behind Galina’s death.
Stanley Morrison. I fucking knew it. Not a robbery gone wrong. Not a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He killed Galina. Stanley murdered the mother of my child in cold blood, just to hurt me. Just to watch me bleed.
The revelation hits me like a sledgehammer, driving all the air from my lungs. Every sleepless night I spent wondering, every theory I’d chased down dark alleys, every dead-end lead that left me bleeding frustration— and it was him all along. My old business partner. The man I’d worked alongside for years. Someone I used to call a friend. The snake who smiled to my face while planning my destruction.
How long had he been planning it? How many times had we sat across from each other, discussing operations, dividing profits, while he was already orchestrating Galina’s murder? How many times had I looked into his eyes and seen nothing but his usual greed when there should have been the cold calculation of a killer?
