Page 202 of Cashmere Ruin

I roll my eyes. This man never fucking shuts up, does he? “I said?—”

“HE SURRENDERS!”

We all turn to Yuri. “The hell?” I whisper.

“You asked me to save them,” Yuri hisses. “So let me fucking save them.” Then he turns back to Carmine. “He says he surrenders. He accepts your deal.”

“My deal?” Carmine frowns.

“Yes. Your original deal.”

Finally, I realize what he’s up to.

You have three days to surrender yourself. If you do, no harm will come to your family.That’s the deal Yuri came to me with earlier. Theoriginaldeal.

The room erupts in murmurs: disbelief, outrage, the whole shebang.

“That deal’s no longer on the table,consigliere,” Carmine tuts, his eye twitching with barely suppressed anger.

“The three days haven’t expired.”

He’s pushing it. If he keeps this up, he’s gonna get himself killed too. “Yuri?—”

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” he insists. “Matvey will be dead. His Bratva will be yours. What good will three dead girls do to you?”

“He’s got a point,” Vlad grumbles. “My idiot daughter can still be of use. And the Groza runt—her whore of a mother can raise her for us, preserve the bloodline. We can marry her off when it suits our needs.”

“No!” April screams.

I lock eyes with April at the edge of the arena. I can tell she wants to wring Vlad’s neck with her own bare hands, and Petra certainly isn’t looking any happier, but I need them to understand. To push their emotions aside and let me do this.

If they don’t, they will be killed.Maywill be killed.

This way, only one of us has to die.

“April…” Her hazel eyes look just like they did when I first met her: big, bright, beautiful—and filled with all the hope in the world. “Trust me.”

Wordlessly, she nods.

“Fine,” Carmine finally concedes, though not happily. “Then I guess we’d better make it official.”

He gives Yuri a signal. Immediately, he twists my arms behind my back. He isn’t using any strength at all, but he doesn’t need to: I let him.

“Matvey Groza…” My father grins. “I accept your surrender.”

60

APRIL

This is a nightmare.

It has to be. There’s no way this can be happening. There’s no way that Matvey…

He’s going to die.

He’s going to sacrifice himself for us.

I watch the man I love walk past me, hands twisted behind his back, and something inside me just snaps. My reason, my logic—it all goes flying out the window.