✔️ ILLICIT DESIRES | 18 +

Chapter 9

ROMAN

Gaia.

I stare at my target, the one I am meant to kill — trapped between the wall and me. She doesn't fight for her life. She stands like a statue, as if carved from stone, her eyes closed, waiting for me to pull the trigger and end it all.

My finger is caught on the trigger, pulled halfway. Just a fraction more, and my mission will be complete. But I can't do it. I cannot pull it entirely down.

One word escapes her lips, freezing my dark intentions. Her voice, like a whisper of redemption — it stops me. It's her. My instincts scream that it's her. The woman in the green dress, the one who embodied Gaia a year ago. The lips that killed for me.

Her taste still ghosts on the tip of my tongue, sweet as honey nectar. So forbidden. I can't kill her. Otherwise, I can never taste her again. Otherwise, I am not true to myself.

Capo wants her dead — a lesson for her father, a traitor who turned to the Russians, our greatest enemy. But here I stand, mesmerized. Hypnotized. Her presence clouds my mind, molding my slanderous intentions with every passing second.

She's haunted my mind ever since she let me devour her. I dreamed of tasting her again — a taste of Heaven. And now, here she is. Right before me. Broken. Trembling. Wasted.

Her trembling figure pierces through me, taking me back to the first time I saw my sister after saving her from human traffickers. My sister — once innocent, like her, until vile bastards shattered her world.

If I kill her now — turning her into a Corpse Bride — how would I be any different from the rotten hands who destroyed my sister? There wouldn't be an ounce of difference...

I should only feel apathy toward her. I shouldn't let her affect me. That's why I gave her the alcohol — making her lost, disoriented, drunk, to make this easier. But the name she whispered shattered my plans. It unraveled a veil before my eyes.

The room, adorned like the heart of the Amazons. The nightshades in her hair. The way she spoke, like Mother Nature. It should dawn on me. But the name slipping from those venomous lips gave her away. I owe her a life.

I exhale slowly. If I let her live, I can't leave her behind. She'll be my problem now. Mine to deal with. Yet, the decision is transparent. I am a man of my word, bound by the promises I make.

So, I will bear the burden of her life, and if she complies, maybe — just maybe — I can find a way to let her live. To settle my debt.

I glance down at her, and a groan of frustration leaks from my lips. I know this won't be simple. She will be a long ride — a mess I've brought upon myself. Illicit.

Drunk, she's incarnated chaos. I've seen it as she gave Nicolai Hell until the wedding was over. Now, I must drag her drunken ass out of this massacre.

Let's hope she won't get shot.

*****POV SWITCH*****

RITA

Flashbacks.

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die, but here I am — no spiral of memories. I only see black. Just blank darkness.

Where are my flashbacks? Shouldn't I be reliving the nights when my dad's rage crashed over me, leaving bruises from all the smacks that struck me? Yet there's nothing. Just a void of hollowness.

I don't even feel pain. The Devil's fatal toy — a cold kiss from death — should take my life and send me to the afterlife. Maybe Mother Nature begged God for me, and I am gifted with no pain, sparing me the agony.