“So you can kill me and call it a fair fight?” he says. Una snorts, and there’s a low rumble of laughter from Nero. He’s watching her every move, propped against the side of the car, arms folded over his chest. He’s not trying to protect her or shelter her. He’s allowing her to just be, to do what she was made to do… to have revenge on those who have wronged her. She’s not a pretty doll to him. She’s a warrior through and through.
“Nothing could make that a fair fight,” Nero tells him, amusement and pride in his tone. “You will die, undoubtedly.”
“You took my child from me and then forced me to fight some of your best only days later.” Una is practically pulsating with rage now, but I hear the pain in her voice. I can’t imagine what that must be like, to have your child taken from you like that. “So now you will fight your best, Nicholai. You will know what it is to fight for your life.”
The older man looks at her for a second, a million unspoken words passing between them. And then he grabs the knives, pushing to feet before he charges her. My heart skips a beat, but Una merely smiles, standing completely still as he rushes her. At the last second, she moves, catching his arm as he fires straight past. She twists his arm behind his back with a sickening crunch of breaking bone. The knife slips from his grasp, and she catches it, slamming it deep into his shoulder. He cries out in pain, and a feral smile graces her lips.
“Damn,” Rafael breathes, twisting to face me. “Maybe you shouldn’t watch this.”
“I’m not some delicate princess, Rafael.”
With a sigh, he turns back to the fight.
Nicholai is spinning, slashing wildly with the remaining knife, his movements nothing more than the desperate last-ditch efforts of a man who knows his fate is sealed. Without an ounce of mercy or effort, Una takes his remaining knife, slamming it into his other shoulder. She wants his suffering, his pain. I can relate because it’s the same thing I’d love to do to any man who has ever touched me. Including him.
Nicholai sways on his feet, blood pouring from both shoulders as he glares at her. “The Bratva will hunt you, little dove,” he says through a grimace.
“I don’t think they will. After all, with you dead, their guns and drugs will once again run freely.” She grasps the hilts of both blades, yanking them out and crossing them in front of her so fast I can barely track the movement. His stomach splits open in a cross from ribs to hip, both sides. His eyes go wide, and he coughs up blood, staggering for a moment before he collapses to the ground. There’s so much blood, and I swear I can see intestines. My stomach rolls, bile creeping up my throat. I can’t look as she deals the final deathblow. I know it’s over because I can feel the change in the air, the tension lifting under relief.
Nicholai Ivanov is dead.
I stand on the balcony overlooking the gardens below. The sun is just setting, streaking the horizon in a kaleidoscope of colors.
The house is full of people, and I know I should probably talk to them, but truthfully, I’m not ready to broach that. Rafael is still very much my safe haven. I feel a confidence with him that evaporates in the face of so many strange people, specifically men. I don’t know the Italians. I don’t trust them.
A throat clears behind me, and I whirl around, my hand on my chest. Una stands in the balcony doorway like a statue. “You can’t creep up on people like that,” I snap.
A small smile pulls at her lips. “Sorry.”
My heart is still pounding, but it’s not just from shock. I turn away from her, wrapping my fingers around the balcony railing in an attempt to root myself. I don’t want to deal with Una and my turbulent emotions towards her. I just want to stay in my little bubble with Rafael, where my sister is still a traitor to me, and nothing else matters but him and me. But watching her kill Nicholai…I know that it’s not as black and white as it may have seemed.
She moves beside me, bracing her elbows on the railing. “I looked for you. For so long. I’d all but given up hope of ever finding you,” she says quietly. “And then Nero asked me to do a job, and he shoved a photo of you in my face.” I don’t respond, because I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. She sighs. “Do you hate me?”
“I hate what you’ve been forced to become. The sister I remember is gone.”