car that vibrated beneath me. Yellow and red. My new coat was ruined, the faux fur matted with streaks of blood. Crimson-soaked bandages lay discarded around me. My shirt was torn open, and the sight of the hole gushing blood in my stomach made me so dizzy I was almost pulled under again. Though Ronan’s voice as he snapped something at Albert grounded me.
My eyes lifted to Ronan, who ripped open a new sterile bandage with his teeth and used it to put pressure on the wound. I tensed in expectation of pain but only felt a twinge in my abdomen as a tremble began to shake my entire body.
Our gazes met.
Russian roulette.
One blink, and—
I’d only miss the sight of him.
A dark, tortured gaze held mine for a long moment. Finally, it seemed to sink into him I was awake and farther from death’s door than he’d assumed. Keeping pressure on my wound, he leaned against the back seat, rested an arm on his elbow, and dropped his head to his chest, eyes closed.
“Ona ne spit,” he exhaled roughly. “Fuck. Ona ne spit.”
“We are almost there,” Albert announced from the front seat.
I’d expected to be in a lot of pain from being shot, though my entire body tingled as if I’d been injected with lidocaine everywhere.
When Ronan opened his eyes, they pinned me with fury. “Zachem ty eto sdelala?” he gritted. “Zachem?”
“English,” I said softly.
“Why the fuck would you do that, Mila?” he growled with a deep rasp. “WHY?”
“You’re not immortal,” I whispered, my throat thick. “I didn’t want you to die.”
He stared at me with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and something else indiscernible. “You don’t get to sacrifice yourself for me.” He clenched his teeth. “You DON’T get to die for me, kotyonok.” His eyes crucified me. “If anyone dies between us, it will be ME. Do you understand?”
I didn’t understand, so I shook my head.
“Then let me make it clear for you,” he said, the shadows in his eyes flashing. “You would survive without me. You would move on.” His tone roughened. “I can’t imagine a world where you and all your fucking yellow doesn’t exist. So if you die, you’ll take me with you. Your sacrifice would mean nothing, kotyonok. NOTHING.”
A tear ran down my cheek as a coldness began to invade the tremble inside me. My marrow was turning to ice, and I shivered violently.
“I’m so cold, Ronan . . .” My eyes felt weighted down, so I closed them.
“Nyet,” Ronan growled, grabbing my face. “Don’t fucking close your eyes.”
“I’m so tired,” I whispered, lethargy pulling at every muscle in my body. “I don’t think . . .”
“If you die, Mila,” he said harshly, “I’ll send Khaos to a back-alley pound.”
My heart beat. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
When the car drew to a stop, Ronan didn’t waste a second. He picked me up and carried me into the hospital. I watched the doctors and nurses rush toward us and throw out questions in Russian. I couldn’t make sense of anything besides what Ronan had threatened as a cold weightlessness consumed me, tugging, pulling, trying to drag me down.
“Don’t do that to Khaos,” I pleaded weakly, interrupting the medical staff.
“Don’t die, and I won’t,” he responded while following the doctors down the hall.
He wasn’t being fair.
“Ronan . . .” A tear slipped down my cheek.
He wiped it away, his tone coarse. “Those are the conditions. You choose.”
How could I choose not to die? Today might be my day, and even D’yavol couldn’t stop fate in its tracks. I may have never gotten the family or love I’d always wanted, but at least I could say I gave it my best shot.
Ronan lay me on a gurney, and a nurse rushed me into an OR room. When a surgeon tried to stop Ronan from entering, he pulled out his pistol and pointed it at the doctor’s head.
“Yesli ona umret, ty tozhe umresh’,” he growled. If she dies, you die too.
The surgeon swallowed, stepped out of his way, and curtly nodded to an area where Ronan could stand.
A nurse put a mask on my face to induce sleep. I tried to pull it off, but it took little effort for her to hold it on while speaking to me in Russian. The gas started to pull my consciousness down, down . . . Though when I met Ronan’s eyes, I knew what I needed to say. Ya lyublyu tebya. I love you. In the end, only one word escaped with