He blamed her for the loss of his ability. She had been the one to figure out how to take him down and she had gone along with the correct plan once she had come up with one. She had done what nobody had ever done to him before. She had beaten him. Not since the age of six, had Mikhail felt weak or unable to defend himself. To an extent, he didn’t recall what it was like to be without his family’s regained legacy, and when she’d taken it away from him, he’d felt defeated, like he had failed whatever family ghosts were still watching him. They must have thought him a disappointment. He didn’t blame them if they had.
Mikhail hated Chloe, but it wasn’t as simple as that. His feelings for her weren’t only built on loathing. If they were, it would have been a whole lot simpler. He might have taken her by the shoulders and bashed her head into the wall over and over again, until she was dead and useless to the world. He might have taken one of the guns from a random guard and shot her in the chest, so that she could lie on the floor until Lex came home to discover his wife’s body.
He was capable of doing those things, but he wasn’t mentally prepared. He despised her and he liked her, and that combination didn’t go well together. It didn’t mix smoothly. He had this strong hunger to hurt people because he had been hurt, and it wasn’t fair that he had to feel pain when these other men and women were allowed to be free and happy. No injections for them.
“It’s smart that you came when I called. Otherwise, these people would have died sooner.” His sight swept over them, from one wall to the other and back again to Chloe. “I’m not letting them go. I can get rid of them while you’re here watching, or I can take care of you first, and then do what needs to be done on my way out. You pick.”