Heavenly Sins Series #2: Lead Through Inferno

Synopsis

SYNOPSIS

AZELEA'S POV

It's funny because the biblical meaning of my name, "Azelea" means "God has spared". And yet it doesn't feel that way.

All my life has been about hiding and pretending. I can't show my true feelings, I can't say the words that are screaming in my mind, I can't show my emotions... I can't be me—whoever that is. It's like I have to live day by day as if I'm part of everything. As if I'm completely present. But the truth is... I'm just a shell.

I needed to be in control of every single thing, even if doing so slowly kills me. I can't let anything slip away, or what I feel that is killing me would turn into a literal sense. I would literally die because there's a high possibility that someone will literally kill me.

I have to be useful and to live a life as quiet as I can so that I can retain whatever peace I have. That's the only thing I have left. The only thing that I have to protect. But even that is for a limited time. I know that I can't keep it forever, but hell if I'm not going to treasure each minute I have left.

Why don't I try to escape? Ask for help? Find a way out?

It's because it's useless. My life is not mine to own. Running won't do me any good, and there's no one who would offer to help me out of fear for themselves.

Until Alexei Maxim Volkov—the Bratva's supposed to be dead king—barged into my life, bloodied and laughing at the trail of demise around him.

Out of all the people in this world, his hand tainted with red is the only one that has reached out to help me.

He wasn't offering, though. He was demanding it.

Holding onto him, he didn't lead me to paradise. Instead, he has every intention to lead me through inferno.