Page 142 of The Harbinger

He snapped his fingers, and Dmitri placed a white cloth in his hands, then wiped each drop of blood off from his split knuckles.

“Talking to Ruslan, Ivan… I expected better from you.”

Ivan lay on his side, resting on his elbow, then fell back, his chest moving up and down with a wet rattle. He glanced up at Sacha from the floor, then at me, and spat a glob of crimson onto the floor.

Katya gasped, and I wrapped my arm around my body, my heart thundering.

This wasn’t because I’d left?

“I…”

“If you want to be aplazuchik, you need to work on your skills.”

“Ya ne—”

Sacha cut him off with a swipe of his hand. “No.Nyet.”

His stern tone caused me to shudder, my hand slipping against my wound. Ivan’s blood flowed like a river, pooling on the floor at the base of the Asmodeus statue like a sacrificial offering.

“Get up.”

Ivan groaned as he pulled himself to his feet, one agonizing inch at a time. I looked on with horror as the blood rolled down his face and dripped to the floor, his left eye swollen shut.

“Now, apologize to Mia for not protecting her.”

“Sacha, don’t.” I stepped back, but he lunged and grabbed my wrist, yanking me towards the man who pictured my death in his visible eye.

He humiliated Ivan for the second time in front of his staff, all because of me. If Ivan hated me before, how would he feel now?

My arm smarted as he pulled it straight, my shield of fingers falling away as I stabilized myself at his side, his grip tight around my delicate bones.

“Mia thinks apologies fix everything. So go on now. Say you’re sorry.”

The proverbial dagger dug into my gut with a little twist as he mocked my sincerity.

“Sorry,” Ivan ground out, his jaw clenched.

“Louder. She didn’t hear you.”

“Sacha, enough.”

His fingers squeezed tighter, and I shrunk away with a wince.

“I’m sorry.”

My cheeks flamed as the insincere public apology echoed through the room as Sacha made a mockery of Ivan.

“But apologies don’t fix everything, do they, Ivan?”

“Alexander Ruslanovich.” Ivan dropped to his knees and grabbed for Sacha’s hand, pressing his split and swollen lips to Sacha’s blood-stained knuckles.

What was happening?

Sacha pulled his hand from his grasp, then placed it on Ivan’s head, patting him like a dog and demeaning him for all to see.

Heat spread up my throat, constricting it with fire as Ivan kneeled before him, unwavering as if waiting for the ax to fall.

Sacha snapped his fingers at Katya, and my body jolted from the inside out as if he’d tugged on a string attached to my spine.