She picked up her phone and typed out several messages, each of which could be summarized as “fuck you, you asshole.” She deleted each one.
He didn’t deserve to get a reaction out of her. But she hovered, balanced on the point of a spike. A dozen options, but all of them felt wrong.
Reply and invite him to go fuck himself.
Send a screenshot to Grigoris and ask him to reach out to the Spartan Guard to see if there was something going on.Had something bad happened that might have prompted this confession?
Reply not with anger but with something bitingly cold. Show him with her words she didn’t care about him anymore.
Forgive him.
In the end, she chose the hardest option of them all. She didn’t reply.
It was a long time before Nikolett put her phone down and once again closed her eyes.
As she lay there in the dark, flashes of memories, both bitter and sweet, sparked in her mind. She should have stayed angry.
But a szerelem a bölcset is vakká teszi.
Love makes even the wise blind.
Maybe the proverb should be updated to “love makes even the wise stupid” because Nikolett’s anger had become a fatalistic sadness.
As if Eric’s words had just sealed her fate, and she had no idea what that fate may be.
It was nearly dawn before she went back to sleep, chased into her dreams by a heavy, aching feeling in her chest.
CHAPTER NINE
The man bent over clutching his chest and belly as he struggled to breathe.
“I hope you die,” Eric grumbled as he slumped back in his office chair.
The video feed on his large monitor showed Devon stumbling to an armchair, still gasping for breath as he howled with laughter.
Center screen, Franco sat beside Juliette on a small couch, both of them staring at him—well, at his image on their screen—in what he could only describe as horror.
He was deeply regretting his decision to call the Grand Master. He’d originally called to tell her he was fixed and she could call off her attack therapist. As evidence that he was fixed, and Elijah could go home, he’d told the Grand Master and her trinity that he apologized to Nikolett.
Elijah had blinked silently for several minutes when, earlier today, Eric told him about his messages to Nikolett. He’d sighed when Eric let him read them.
It was Elijah’s insistence that they talk about this that had Eric deciding to go above the American’s head to get Elijah to go home. Eric was no longer catapulted into fight, flight, or freezemode whenever he thought about the people he’d loved and lost. He was ready to stop spending his days thinking about, and talking about, his past and his feelings. It was time for action.
And, he had a plan for Nikolett.
Admittedly a plan he’d come up with all by himself rather than talking it through with anyone. But it was a good plan.
He’d been sure of that until Juliette asked him to read out the messages he sent Nikolett, which brought them to this moment. The normally taciturn Devon was having a manic laughing fit, while Franco and Juliette were distressingly quiet.
“I needed to apologize. In order to move on.” He hoped he didn’t sound as defensive and unsure as he felt.
“Did Dr. Mata suggest this?” Juliette asked carefully.
“No.”
“Have you shown him these messages?”
“Yes.”
