Beautiful Devils (Filthy Wicked Psychos, #2)

by Eva Ashwood

“Ya yeshche nikogo tak ne khotel, kak tebya,” I tell her, letting it slip off my tongue in Russian. I know she doesn’t understand the words, and maybe that’s for the best. I’m not sure I’m ready for her to know just how deep my feelings for her run.

I have never wanted anyone as much as I want you

you shouldn’t let anyone try to change you. You shouldn’t let anyone make you feel like you’re not already good enough. Because you are. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. And the sweetest. You’ve held onto your kindness, even when the world has no right to expect that from you. You’re already perfect.”

How the hell would I know I was alive if I didn’t brush up against death every once in a while?”

“Let him watch,” Ransom murmurs. “You know Vic doesn’t always like to be touched, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you.”

Before I’m all the way asleep, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out to see a text, blinking at it blearily. It’s from Vic, and it’s just two words. VICTOR: You’re beautiful.

The terrifying truth is, I’m getting attached to these men. They’re under my skin, just like Malice said, and I’m so terrified that I’ll fall for them completely, only to see them die. I’m terrified that they’re the wrong people to fall for.

“You’re not a pawn,” he tells me, his voice lowered. “You never have been. You’re a fucking queen. You’re the only person in this whole goddamned world who could bring me to my knees. The only person who’s ever crawled inside my soul.”

“Ya zhe govoril, chto ne otpushchu tebya,” he murmurs in Russian. “Ya ne mogu. Nikogda ne smogu.”

I told you I wouldn’t let you go… I can’t. I never can.

Ya ne mogu nalyubovat'sya toboy.”

I can't stop looking at you.

I had nightmares about it almost every night for the first couple weeks after it happened, dreams of being surrounded by flames and the ominous shadows flickering in the light from the fire. This time, it was different than it normally is. It wasn’t just Nikolai’s terrifying brother who was trying to kill me. There was a monster in the room with me and Ilya, a creature stalking the shadows.

I didn’t miss the man himself, but it was like I was mourning what never was. All the things father never was to me and what he never would be now.

“He deserved to die screaming for this,” I tell her, not even caring that it makes me sound like a violent psychopath. Willow knows who I am and what I’m capable of by now, so the fact that I’d be willing to kill for her—to torture and maim for her—shouldn’t come as any kind of surprise.

I want to build my own life. I want to make something that’s truly mine. And more and more, I feel like I could do that with these men. They’ve seen every part of me—the darkness and the light, the good and the bad—and none of it has made them turn away.

Maybe death is peaceful, but life is messy and complicated, etched out in jagged lines and shades of gray.