Not when I’m a Campisi and he’s a Barkov. Not when I’m already planning to run, to vanish.
I know it can’t happen. And yet, I grieve. I mourn what I’m losing before it’s even entirely mine. Whatever this is, I’ll miss it.
I puff out a long breath, cheeks full, trying to lighten the weight in my chest. Aimlessly, I cycle through a few stretches, a few reps to pass the time while Nik showers and dresses upstairs.
I shove the disappointment down, press it into the deepest corners of my chest, and whisper a promise to myself: I’ll do this again and again until the ache dulls. Until the wanting burns itself out.
“I can do this,” I murmur, though the hollow echo in my chest says otherwise.
“You can do what?”The voice makes me jump.
I look up and find my brother Vincenzo standing near the door.
Thank God Nik has been gone for a while. I don’t know how I could have explained us both being in the gym together, at such an early hour. Especially not after last night’s display on the dance floor.
“Nothing,” I say. “None of your business.”
I grab my phone and water bottle and try to head past him, but he blocks me. My brother is not terribly tall, but he is stocky and built for fighting.
“You’re not even dressed for working out,” I observe. “What are you doing here?”
He lifts a shoulder. I don’t like the look in his eyes.
“I could ask you the same thing,” he says.
“I’m just getting a workout in,” I say. “Now get out of my way.”
He doesn’t move away. In fact, he moves closer, leaning in and sniffing me like some kind of animal.
I shudder, a chill running through me at the violation.
“You stink.”
I force my face to stay neutral. “What part ofI was working outdo you not understand? Of course I stink.”
“No, it’s not that,” he says. Then he moves back, giving me a lazy smile. “Oh, wait. It’s the smell of that fucking Russian all over you.”
For a moment, I feel a twist of panic in my gut. I didn’t take care of myself after everything that happened last night. Maybe I do smell like him?
“What the fuck were you thinking, Leanna?” he asks. “Letting that giant ogre dance with you like that? What a fucking slap in the face to our whole organization. And worse, to the poor sap who came all that way to meet you. Trick or Track or whatever his name was.”
“Trace,” I murmur.
I had forgotten about him, about his look of concern from the side of the dance floor. I had forgotten him because Nikolai Ivanov blots out the moon. He is the only person in every room we share together.
“You should apologize to that poor, dumb fucker,” he says.
“He’s not…dumb,” I say this weakly, though it’s definitely true. “And, I mean, sure. I can apologize.”
“And you should apologize to Dad. And me. And Ezra. And every other Campisi in the room today, because that was a fucking embarrassment. And beyond that. It put a couple of things in place for me.”
I feel my face scrunch in on itself, confusion setting in. “What are you even talking about?”
My brother’s hand shoots out, wrapping around my throat. At first, it’s almost casual, but then he slams me into the wall, grip tightening like he wants to crush the air from my lungs. His eyes are wild, burning with a fury that makes my chest freeze.
I can’t tell if he wants to hurt me or if he wants to see me drop dead.
Then, just as suddenly, something flickers across his face. He glances over his shoulder, and the rage drains from his hands. He lets go entirely, stepping back, slinking down the hall with his hands in his pockets, as if nothing had just happened.
