Page 206 of Cashmere Ruin
For a second, I think it’s Vlad again, trying to take another shot at me. But when I glance back, I see Petra standing over his body, one bloody knife in each hand. And her eyes, wide and terrified, are staring somewhere else entirely.
No…
It can’t be…
“MATVEY!”
I watch the man I love fall backwards, pushed by the tip of Carmine’s gun, still smoking with the bullet that got him.
A bullet straight through the heart.
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APRIL
No.
No, no, no…
“Whew!” Carmine goes. “Thought he had me for a second there.” He gives Matvey a cursory glance, then steps over him.
I want to kill him. I’ve never felt like this before. Never in all my life. If I didn’t have a baby in my arms right now, I’d be wringing his neck with my own two hands.
“But like I said…” He gives a light kick backwards, jostling Matvey’s limp arm in the process. “—can’t beat the house. Right, Miss?”
It’s like watching a kid gloat over the flightless torso of a butterfly. Like nothing could make him happier than plucking those wings right off. Not because he hates it—just because he’scurious.Because he wants to see what will happen.
“You’re a child,” I realize.
Carmine’s face hardens imperceptibly. “Come again?”
“You’re a child,” I repeat, rising to my full height. “That’s why you left, over and over. Because you couldn’t possibly handle the responsibility of being the adult in the room.”
“I understand you’re upset?—”
“You understand nothing,” I laugh. It’s the last thing I expected to do in a moment like this, but here I am: lips curling into a half-snarl, half-grin. All the mockery I was always on the receiving end of, ready to overflow towards the other side. “You didn’t go after Matvey because he was after you—you went after him because he knew the truth. That you, the great Don Carmine Bonaccorsi, were nothing but an overgrown toddler.”
Carmine’s smile freezes on his face. “Interesting choice of words for someone on the wrong side of the barrel.”
“Then use it,” I drawl, taking another step forward. “Make me disappear. And prove me right while you’re at it.”
Finally, there it is: conflict. Such a big man, hemmed into a corner by a measly seamstress. “No, no,” he sneers. “You don’t get the easy way out, Miss. Not after this enlightening conversation. And, I’m sorry to say, neither does your daughter.”
If anything could make me freeze, it’s that.
In any other circumstances, I might have forced myself to eat my own words. To fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness, for mercy. Not because I believed any of it, but because it was the smart thing to do. For my daughter—ourdaughter.
Except that I see movement.
It’s the barest twitch out of the corner of my eye. For a second, I wonder if I’ve imagined it. I’m certainly desperate enough.
But then it happens again.
And suddenly, I know exactly what to do.
“You’d take it out on a baby?” I scoff. “Wow. What a big, bad man you are.”
“I was under the impression you were the clever one. Now, did I get that wrong?”