Eva sits rigid in the hospital bed, her hands clenched into fists in her lap. She’s trying to be strong for both of us, but I can see the cracks.
And the one gift I can give to her is to not make it harder than it has to be.
“Thank you,” I say. “I’ll never forget you. Ever.”
I leave without looking back, because if I do, I’ll never have the strength to walk away.
The hospital corridor stretches endlessly before me like some hallucinatory never-ending passage, lights buzzing overhead like angry insects. Each step takes me further from the woman I love and closer to a life that suddenly feels impossibly empty.
We’re both broken now. But we’re both alive.
In Eva’s world, I guess that’s the closest thing to a happy ending we were ever going to get.
Chapter 24
Eva
Iwake the next morning to Leon looming over me. “You have a visitor,” he rumbles quietly. I sit up fast—too fast—wondering if Robin has come back after all, ignored everything I said, decided she was going to?—
“Hello, Eva.” It’s not Robin.
It’s Dominika Kusek. What is she…
For a split second, I wonder if she came because she was worried about me. Because she heard about the attack, and… But her face is cool, her eyes cutting, her shoulders squared like she’s bracing for a fight.
I glance at Leon. “It’s alright.”
He’s not happy, but he backs out of the room with a hard stare at Nik.
“So,” she says once he’s gone, her tone laced with dry contempt. “This miraculous woman you’ve suddenly fallen for. Tell me about her, because I don’t believe for one second that she really exists.”
I give a frosty smile. “Why on earth would I make her up?”
Nik scoffs. “Because you have some deeper scheme. You want to provoke Brie into a war with the Gattos because you think—wrongly—that we will lose. Isn’t that what this is really about? You’re looking for a way to destroy the Colombos. To get back atme.”
I sit up straighter, the old me flooding back. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not worth the trouble,Dominika.”
She tilts her head. “Then tell me. Where did you meet this fantasy woman?”
“I told you all at the meeting,” I snap. “I met her at the auction. I was there. I bought her.”
Nik’s eyes narrow in disgust. “You—took partin the auction?” Her voice is low, dangerous. “God, Eva. Of course you did.”
I’m losing my audience, clearly. But my head is still too fuzzy to provide the words I need right now. “Listen, it wasn’t as though I was there in order to—you don’t understand—” I reach out for her.
“I understand, alright.” She jerks back as though my outstretched hand might infect her. “And I don’t know what game you’re playing this time, Eva, but I’m going to recommend to Brie that she stay well away from it.”
She marches out, leaving me in a room that feels suddenly twice as cold.
Goddamnher.
And yet…I can’t entirely blame her. What she said, her fear that this was just a ploy to destroy the woman she loves, and the Colombo Family—well, I can see why she’d think that.
I’ve done pettier things before.
My reputation isn’t exactly working for me when it comes to Nik Kusek.
I’ll have to call Brie again, but not until I get back home. Put some distance between me and my broken heart.
