Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Today…not even one of them was here.
And the rest of the entrance…empty. Silence. Where the fuck was everyone?
Isaak swore behind me, but he stayed close to my heels as I ran into the house.
Red. First thing that filled my sight.
Blood. Bodies. Death.
The air smelled of sweat, blood, and death. My estate looked like something akin to a horror movie. A fucking massacre.
This wasn’t the same house I left behind. No, this…this was all wrong.
My heart stammered, and I ran blindly upstairs, ignoring everything else…everyone else. The cries of pain, the bellows of agony and anger…of fear, I blocked it all out.
Except…my Angel.
“Maria!”
My voice didn’t sound right. There was fear in it. Horror. Distress. Panic. Everything that wasn’t Lyov Ivanshov.
Right now, I wasn’t the King of the underworld.
Right now, I was just a man who desperately needed to hold his Angel. I was a husband who feared—the last time he had touched his wife was hours ago—that he would never get the chance again.
My heart raced as I ran to my room, where I knew Maria would be. With each step, it was harder for me to breathe. The blood. The dead bodies. Fuck.
I was silently praying to the Higher Powers. For the first fucking time in my life, I prayed as I ran. Let her be safe. Let Alessio be safe. They were all who mattered.
None of my prayers mattered, though. I was too late. And after all, the prayers of a Devil could never be accepted. I made hell my home. Heaven was far from my reach, let alone that my prayers would make any difference.
The door was open.
My lungs clenched. My heartbeats became faster, harder, and erratic. There was a turbulence of emotions in me.
I walked inside, and my legs weakened before giving out under me. I sank to my knees. My breath left me. My heart was in pieces.
My body trembled with the force of reality. My brain tried to register the scene in front of me, while my soul slowly withered into nothingness. The world swirled around me, and my stomach rolled with a sick feeling, fighting the urge to throw up. It felt like a clawed hand was around my throat, restricting my air. I couldn’t breathe. I fought for it, gasping, but I just couldn’t…breathe.
My lips parted, and a roar of agony ripped through my throat.
No. No. No.
This was just a fucking dream. I slapped myself on the head, hitting myself over and over again. Wake up. Wake up, damn it.
I closed my eyes and continued to scream, hoping it would pull me from this nightmare.
But when I opened my eyes again, I only saw blood.
Blood covering my Angel.
Blood everywhere.
My Angel’s corpse.
“Maria.” Her name came out as a whimper.
Everything else faded away. It was just her and me. Just me and my broken Angel.
I crawled to her, slipping on the bloody floor. Falling beside her too-still body, I wrapped my arms around her. I held her on my lap, her blood seeping into my clothes.
Blood never did anything to me. Fuck, I lived for it…to spill the blood of others. But not my Maria. I couldn’t bear it. It made me sick, and I crumpled at the pain.
With a hand, I held her face. “Please, open your eyes, Angel. Please. Don’t do this to me.”
I shook her body, but there was no response.
Silence. She was too cold. So cold that I would never be able to warm her again. Her warmth had left her…me…us. And now, I was cold too. Cold and so empty.
Pain had a way of evolving. You felt it in every pore, down to your bones, and the depth of your heart—your soul. Sometimes it started slow and then your body would slowly go numb.
Pain was an emotion that thrived from weakness, no matter how much you were meant to be strong and powerful.
When it came to pain…to the hurting part of your soul, there was no escape. And just like that, it filtrated me like a virus, a sick feeling that felt like I could never rid of. My lungs contracted, and my chest felt like it was being dug on, knives cutting through, deeper and deeper. Slashing with no remorse, carving a sculpture of pain without any sympathy. My heart was being wrenched away, and I watched it bleed, shrivel, and die.
Just like my Angel.
No. This couldn’t be happening. Not like this. Not this way.
I bellowed out another scream as I pulled her body closer into my embrace. Burying my face in her neck, I cried. “Wake up. Please wake up. You can’t…leave…me.”
But she did…my Maria left me. I was too late.
My throat felt tight and heavy. Raw from crying and screaming. Maybe I was like this for hours, clinging to Maria’s still, cold body. I held onto her until I was numb…until nothing made any sense to me. Until my ears became deaf. My eyes lost their sight, except of her beautiful face. Everything else was just a dark hole.