Dinastiya Tested // 3rd Book of the Takaryev Trilogy

Chapter 73

Music for this chapter. Run by AWOLNATION, or Zero Pharaoh by Everything Everything. If you finish the chapter before the song ends, just sit there and listen to the rest of the song. 

Ravil returned to reality and saw Artem lying on the ground in front of him. He cast his viridian gaze to his hands, which began to tremble. 

He turned to stare, enraged, at the quivering crowd of FSO officers, and shouted, voice crackling with an amalgam of anger and terrible melancholy. "Why didn't someone shoot me, goddammit!"

One of the officers stepped to the forefront of the crowd. "H-he told us not to."

Ravil turned back to face Artem, tears now cascading down his face in rivulets. "Artem, you goddamn idiot," he murmured. "Izvinite menya," 

Leopold began to talk this time. "Finally. No more botched executions." 

"Shut the hell up," Ravil growled, approaching him. He briefly glanced over at the officers. "Give me a gun, one of you. I lost the other one when they took me to the morgue."

"Mr. President-" one of them started.

"Give me a goddamn gun!" Ravil snapped.

The officer closest to him trembled briefly before handing him a gun. 

Ravil cocked it and pointed it at Leopold. "Should've done this a long time ago. Any last words?" 

Leopold's eyes flashed with...was that fear? "Ravil, you don't want to do this."

"Yes, I do." Ravil retorted. "Screw the last words. You don't get that privilege." 

Ravil pulled the trigger. A bullet met Leopold's skull, sending bright crimson blood spraying onto the grass. The adviser's body fell. 

"Now take this gun," Ravil's voice shook as he gave the gun back to the officer, "before I kill someone else." 

Unable to process the magnitude of everything he'd just done, Ravil stormed off and retreated to Saint Michael's Castle.