Page 153 of Fall into Savagery

So did it make me a monster for not feeling bad?

I blinked as I took him in.

Like the house, Dr. Russo looked smaller than I had remembered.

I buried my face in Mikhail’s chest as a small tremor wracked my entire body.

“Mikhail?”

“I know, baby,” he said softly. “Why don’t you wait in the car for us?”

I nodded and walked away.

“Catalina, what are you doing?” Dr. Russo shouted at me. “You’re going to leave me here with these bastards. You cold, heartless bit—”

His voice was suddenly cut off. I didn’t need to turn around to know why.

I didn’t turn around at all.

I climbed into the car and buried my head in my knees, trying to keep from being sick.

Oh, God. I was going to be sick.

Five long minutes later, a gunshot rang through.

I jumped.

I knew who pulled the trigger.

And all I could think about was that it was done.

The man who had violated me since I was sixteen, the man who had inserted his finger inside of me under the guise of checking for my hymen since I had been nothing but a child, was gone.

One of the men I love had killed him, and he was gone.

But that didn’t erase what he did to me.

Didn’t erase the fact that he had touched me in a way I didn’t allow or consent to for six long years.

The doors opened, and I let out a small scream.

“Fuck, Baby,” Mikhail breathed out.

In the length of one small exhale, I found myself on his lap with his arms wrapped tightly around me.

I could finally breathe for the first time in a very, very long time.

Damien and Nikolay sat close to me.

We didn’t say anything on the car ride back to the airstrip.

There was nothing that needed to be said.

30

CATALINA

We got back hometo the penthouse a little past midnight.

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