บททั้งหมดของ A Prey For My Enemy: บทที่ 131 - บทที่ 140

TatianaI screamed his name. I slapped his face. I pressed my ear against his chest and listened, my own heart stopped, my lungs frozen, until I heard it—a faint, erratic beat, a fluttering bird trapped in a cage of broken ribs. He was unconscious. Not dead. Not yet.I dragged him to the bed. It was impossible—he outweighed me by half, all muscle and bone and dead weight—but adrenaline is a kind of madness, and I lifted him inch by inch across the floor until I could roll him onto the mattress beside Leo. The boy stirred but did not wake, his hand reaching out instinctively and finding Kain's torn sleeve, curling around the fabric with a trust that made my throat close.I worked through the night. I used every blanket, every strip of cloth, every bottle of antiseptic and suture thread I found in Kain's medical kit. I stitched the wound in his side with hands that shook so badly I had to stop every few minutes to press them against my stomach and breathe. I set his b

Tatiana I thought of my mother. I thought of her pearls around my throat, the weight of them, the history. I thought of Kain on the floor of the cabin, trying to stand, trying to reach me. I thought of Leo, small and brave, handing his father a knife.And I waited for the cut.But it didn't come.Instead, a gunshot cracked through the morning air, so close that the car windows rattled, and Julian jerked backward, his eyes wide, his hand falling away from my face. The Godfather's pistol was suddenly in his hand, raised, aimed out the window, and I heard shouting from the ridge, the sound of men running, boots on gravel.Another gunshot. Then another.I looked up. Through the window, I could see the cabin below. The door was open. And in the doorway, leaning against the frame with a knife in one hand and his son's small body shielded behind him, was Kain.He was bleeding. He was broken. He was standing on legs that should not have held him, his face a

The question hit me like a physical blow. I felt my spine straighten, felt my shoulders tense, and I knew that she saw it. She was watching me too closely now. She had learned, in our short time together, that my silences were louder than my words, and she was using that knowledge like a probe, pressing against the weak points."My father had one," she continued, her voice dropping lower, more dangerous. "Identical. He kept it on his desk. He told me it was carved by someone who mattered." She tilted her head, and the gesture was so like Madam's that I felt my breath catch. "Did you carve it? Did she? What connects you to my family?""You know nothing about what your father did," I said. The words came out rougher than I intended, scraped raw at the edges, and I saw her flinch. Not from fear. From the shock of finally getting a reaction."Then tell me." She dropped the chair leg. It clattered against the stone floor, and she reached into the pocket of her dress, the same stained dress

The door clicked shut and I stood in the ruin of Madam’s room with the wolf clutched in my fist, my pulse loud enough to drown out the sea.Don’t trust Julian.The words kept repeating, not because they were shocking, but because Kain had said them like a man stating the weather. Like he knew the shape of Julian’s hands. Like he had watched him longer than I had.I yanked the door open and ran into the corridor.Kain was already at the far end, his back to me, moving with the long stride he used when he wanted to disappear. I sprinted after him, my bare feet slapping stone, and I caught his sleeve before he could turn the corner.“How do you know him?”He stopped. He looked down at my hand on his arm, then at my face, and his expression was carefully blank. “Let go.”“No.” I tightened my grip. The wool was rough against my palm. “You don’t get to say his name and walk away. Julian is my fiancé. He was at the funeral. He was grieving. He has been searching for me—”“Has he?”The questi

"What?""He came to me two years ago. He was afraid. Someone was moving against him, someone inside his own house, and he didn't know who to trust." Kain's jaw tightened. He looked toward the window, toward the grey sea beyond the glass, as if the words were easier to speak to the horizon than to me. "He asked me to protect you if something happened to him. He gave me the wolf. He said you would recognize it. He said it would prove I was telling the truth."I thought of the wolf in my other hand, the key hidden in its base, the spiral carved beneath its paw. I thought of my father telling me it was made by someone who mattered. I thought of Kain saying my father had betrayed the person who carved it."Then why did you kill him?" The question tore out of me, ragged and wet. "If he trusted you, if you were supposed to protect me, why did you walk into our house and shoot him?"Kain was silent. The room was too small, the air too thin, and I could hear my own heartbeat