Bullet ✔️

Chapter 39

I guess I never really thought about how I'd react staring down the length of a gun. The black, seemingly endless barrel was smoking from the shot that hit my ex—if he was still alive, he didn't make any sounds. I didn't think I'd ever be in a situation like this; where my boyfriend, the merciless and stone cold mafia heir, was about to kill me.

His face gave nothing away, but I knew his family meant everything to him.

The smell of smoke and the tang of blood lingered in my nose and the back of my throat. My cheeks were stained with dried and wet and dried and wet tears. It was hard to breathe. The lights flickered above us, and though my eyes were firmly on the black weapon pointed right at my forehead, I knew there was blood on the floor. My knees were warm and sticky with it. Charlie's blood.

This was not how I thought my life would end.

This was not the way it was supposed to go. I always thought I'd eventually buy a house with a nice person I wanted to share my life with. Grow old together and watch shitty TV every night, laugh and love each other until we died of old age.

But there I was; about to die at twenty-five, and my mystery man was the one holding the gun.

"I should've expected that," Orlov said, breaking the silence. I still didn't look away from the gun in front of me, Damian's dark hair and clothes in the background slowly faded away. "He was, after all, a bit handsy."

"Shut up," Damian growled, his eyes finally on me. But there was still nothing familiar in those dark irises. I wanted to think I could see the wheels running inside his mind, to see what he was thinking and what he was debating, whether or not he would pull the trigger.

I tried to speak, but I couldn't. It was like my vocal chords had just ran out of my mouth and left the whole situation. Along with the last remaining pieces of my shattered heart.

My knees hurt, and I wanted to turn around to see what had happened to Charlie, but I was afraid that if I even so much as blinked, my life would be over. The gruesome revelation that death wouldn't be so bad made my hands curl into fists. I wanted death to scare me, I wanted to continue living, but this felt more like mercy than cruelty.

If he was really so bad, I didn't want to stay there with him. So if he pulled the trigger—good riddance. He'd save me from himself.

That was what he was thinking. As soon as the thought entered my mind, I knew it. He loved me, but he thought himself so bad that he'd rather save me from a lifetime of misery alongside him. If he pulled the trigger, I'd agree.

These past few months had been a whirlwind in so many more ways than I could have ever imagined. A whirlwind romance, full of passion and love and tenderness. A whirlwind of shock, first the mafia, then dad's kidnapping and death and my own anger after, then this. Tears ran down my cheeks again, and I could barely see anything at all as I slowly fell more and more, unable to hold myself upright. I saw the silhouette of Damian's head move upwards, as if he was assessing me and my breakdown, his black eyes gleaming in the flickering lights.

I wanted to beg—to ask him how he could ever live with himself after killing me—but I didn't. I didn't let him have the satisfaction of knowing he'd broken me completely. That gorgeous man who loved me and supported me and made me feel alive even after I'd lost everything. He was just like Orlov. Worse, even, because Orlov killed a man he didn't know. Damian pointed a gun at me—his girlfriend, his live-in girlfriend whom he'd said he had plans to marry.

I huffed, letting my disappointment and sorrow show as he moved closer, adjusting his aim. I could feel him looking at me with his heavy, intense gaze. If he finally showed some sort of emotion, I couldn't see, because my vision was clouded by tears.

"I love you, sweetheart." His voice was raw, filled with so much more than his need to keep his family empire. His chest rose and fell, and then—

Click.