Page 57 of Ruined By Sin

He has no clue that this honestly hurts me more than it hurts him. But he did it to himself.

I grab his tongue and pull it out and cut it cleanly. The blade is sharp enough that it takes one stroke. Blood fills his mouth instantly and pours down his chin and onto the floor and he screams, or tries to.

What comes out is a wet, gurgling howl that doesn't sound human.

I drop the severed tongue on the floor and wipe the blade on my jacket and fold the knife closed. My hands are covered in blood and shaking. I feel every person in the room staring at me, but I keep my eyes locked on the screaming, blubbering idiot in front of me.

"That's for lying to my family," I tell him, gritting my teeth against the hate sizzling on my tongue. He's lucky I don't slit his throat too.

Morin is choking on his own blood, his head hanging forward, as I step back from him and walk to the office door. This next part is where Morin will get what he really deserves. I can never kill him myself. To do so would be to violate my own conscience in a way I'd never recover from.

But the man behind this door can. And I won't stop him.

I open it, and Victor Mirov is standing in the hallway.

He's been there for forty minutes, waiting, just like we arranged. When the men see him, they let go of Morin and everyone points their weapon at the newcomer, but I wave them off, gesturing them back until Yegor stands down, then Radimir. My family is a bit slower, but they've been lied to about this man for years now.

"He's yours," I say and step aside.

Victor walks into the room and doesn't bother to look at Roman or Kazimir or Stepan or any of the other men standing around the table. He walks straight to Morin on his knees with blood pouring from his mouth and pulls a pistol from inside his coat and presses the barrel against Morin's forehead.

I didn't ask Victor what he had planned for this man and I don't want to know. I turn my back on them and pinch the bridge of my nose, feeling two decades of friendship dissolving right before my eyes.

"You have lied to us for long enough. You've stolen and you've made my family look evil. When Mr. Kuzin kindly offered me the pleasure of meeting him here today, I agreed with one condition... That I be the one to pull the trigger." Victor pauses and I brace myself. "This is for my nephew Baron, and for his cousins, Nika and Alexei."

The gunshot is deafening in the enclosed space. It makes my ears ring so I don’t even hear Morin's body hit the floor, but my head drops all the same, even as I turn around to see Victor holster the pistol and turn to Roman.

My brother steps around the table and stands in front of him, extending his hand. They've been at war for years all because of my pride and refusal to see what was in front of me the whole time.

"No more fighting," Roman says.

Victor takes it. "No more."

Finally, the tension is behind us, and we don't have to fear any more attacks from anyone.

But it doesn't fix the fact that Kira lied to me for so long. I understand what Kazimir said, that Kira was scared and trying to stay alive. She didn't know who I was, and as such, she feared me.

But she had a million opportunities to speak up when she did learn about me. And she didn't. I'm not sure how to forgive that.

But I want to try.

I just have to speak with her. Maybe there is some hope of redemption.

28

KIRA

Timur walks through the door as I'm lying in bed with my buzz wearing off and I never hear the lock click. He left me free the whole time he was gone, but all I managed to do was lie in bed and get drunk. Now, watching him stalk in covered in blood, I push myself up and wince at how much my body still hurts. That sick bastard did a number on my body, though I'm bruised because of slipping in that mud.

"You're awake," he says, but his head is hanging, looking down at his phone. He's covered in blood, stained from neck to belly and across both sleeves of his suit coat too. It's not on his hands but they're bright pink, like he scrubbed himself raw to clean off the evidence. I'm not sure if I should be scared or not, but I'm leaning more toward yes.

My eyes flick to the bottle on the bedside table, empty now because I finished it, and it did no good. I still couldn’t knock myself out. "I couldn’t sleep." That blood scares me. It could be Victor's or my father's—or both. He could be here to finish the task of murdering every last Mirov on the planet. I don’t knowwhat's going through his mind, and I don't pretend to read his thoughts.

"Someone wants to speak to you..." he says as he hands me his phone. There's a call connected, but my eyes are a bit blurry from being tired and a little buzzed still. I glance up at him and grimace, not sure what this is.

But I take the phone and press it to my ear, saying, "Hello?"

"Kira, sweetheart?"