Page 8 of BRATVA'S Avenging Bride
"I hurt people who deserve it." His eyes find mine, dark and steady. "Boris deserved it. Abram deserved it. The men who put their hands on you and the other girls…they all deserved exactly what you gave them."
Something in my chest twists. I don't want his approval. Don't want him to make what I did sound righteous instead of desperate.
"I'm not a hero," I say quietly.
"I never said you were." He sets his glass down and moves closer. Not threatening, but deliberate. Like every step is a choice. "Heroes save people,zhar-ptitsa. You executed them. There's a difference."
"Stop calling me that."
"Calling you what?"
"Zhar-Ptitsa. Firebird. I'm not your pet."
His mouth curves. "No. You're a phoenix. You burned everything down and walked out alive."
The words hit somewhere soft and undefended. I look away, focus on the window, the city lights blurring in my peripheral vision.
"What do you want from me?" My voice comes out smaller than I mean it to.
"Right now? I want you to eat something. Shower. Sleep. Stop shaking."
I glance down at my hands. He's right. I'm trembling so hard the vodka sloshes in the glass.
Adrenaline crash. I've had them before, but never like this. Never after burning three men alive.
"I killed them." The confession slips out before I can stop it. "I locked the doors and I lit the fire and I listened to them scream."
"Good."
The word is so blunt, so certain, it punches the air from my lungs.
"What?"
"They hurt you. They hurt girls who couldn't fight back. They deserved worse than smoke inhalation." He takes the glass from my shaking hands and sets it aside, then reaches up slowly, giving me time to pull away, and brushes a streak of ash from my cheek. His thumb is warm, calloused. Gentle in a way that makes my throat tighten. "You did what you had to do. Don't apologize for it. Don't carry shame for it. Own it."
"I'm a murderer."
"You're a survivor." His hand drops. "And survivors don't get the luxury of clean hands."
I want to argue. Want to tell him he's wrong, that there's a difference between surviving and becoming a monster.
But I can't.
Because when I close my eyes, I don't see Boris's face. I see Lena's bruises. Mira's broken ribs. The new girl crying for her mother.
And I don't regret it. I don't regret it at all.
"Come on." Matvey's voice pulls me back. "I'll show you where you can sleep."
He leads me down the hallway, past closed doors I don't ask about. The room at the end is bigger than the entire flat I shared with the other girls. A king-size bed with black sheets. A connecting bathroom with a tub that could fit three people. A closet already stocked with clothes that I could easily make fit.
I stop in the doorway. "Why did you—"
“I take care of what's mine."
"I'm not yours."
He leans against the doorframe, all casual danger and dark amusement. "Not yet."
