And he’d just taken that option away from her.
She tried to keep her chin up and failed.“Then let me go home and be done with this.We can get the marriage annulled and move on with our lives.”
“Nyet.” A sharp shake of his head.“You are mine now.”
And round and round they went.She swallowed past a burning in her throat that was most definitelynottears.“What do you want from me?”
“A number of things.”This time he did make contact, feathering his fingers over her cheekbone and down to her jaw.Dmitri stepped back before she could decide if she wanted to slap his hand away or lean into his touch.“But, for the moment, I will be satisfied with removing any trace of drugs from your system.”
Keira snorted even as her stomach lurched.“Good luck.Unless you’re planning on sending me to rehab, that’s not going to happen.”Aiden had tried to sober her up a number of times, but she always found a way to get what she needed, and eventually he stopped trying.Keira was something of a functioning addict—if one could call her life functioning—and so her brother settled with restricting her drug choices to pot and alcohol.
“You’re right.I’m not sending you to rehab.”He pushed gently on her shoulder, and she was unsteady enough thatit toppled her onto her back.Keira shoved her hair out of her eyes as she sat up, but froze when she saw Dmitri now stood in the doorway to her room.“I’m bringing rehab to you.”He shut the door and she heard the unmistakable sound of a key turning in a lock.
Keira stared.He hadn’t… hehad.He locked her in her room.She jumped to her feet and grabbed her bag off the floor.It was significantly lighter than it should have been.Even knowing what she’d find, Keira upended it on the bed.Her backup bottle of vodka was gone, along with her bag of joints.Dmitri really was forcing her to get clean.
Goddamn bastard.
Time ceased to hold meaning for Keira.It started with the sweating and only got worse from there.Distantly, she knew she was going through withdrawal, but the thought couldn’t take root.She lay on the bed in her underwear and a tank top, and stared at the ceiling.An addict.I am an addict.The word felt as dirty as she did these days.
What would Devlin think if he could see her now?
There was no sheen of delirium to hold the memories of her late brother at bay.They assaulted her, one after another, an endless cascade of grief that she hadn’t allowed herself to feel since the day she came home to realize she had lost the sibling she loved most in the world.
Ten-year-old Devlin, so much smarter and more mature than her eight-year-old self, taking her into the woods surrounding their Connecticut house and showing her a litter of baby rabbits, and then telling her every single detail he knew about the animal.Being Devlin, he knew everything.
Devlin at fifteen, using a huge chunk of the money he’d earned working at one of their family’s legit businesses to buy her the fancy set of paints their father said was a waste of time and money.Her brother had been so damn proud of her art, so proud that she had something ofhers.Something she loved.
Rushing into his room when he was nineteen to tell him that she’d gotten into RISD.Keira hadn’t told anyone else that she was even applying, and it was Devlin who insisted she submit her work for the scholarship competition.Four years in art school, paid for becausesheearned it—a step she never would have thought to take without his urging.
Devlin at twenty, pale and still in his casket, shot in the street like a fucking dog because he was an O’Malley and their father had pissed off the Hallorans.A casualty in a war he’d never wanted any part of.A life snuffed out far too early.He’d had ambitions that actually meant something, and after he graduated college, he’d had every intention of putting his considerable knowledge and skill to use.Forgood.
What was her silly art when compared with that?
She blinked, her eyes gritty.Keira hadn’t cried at his funeral.She hadn’t allowed herself to.Instead, she’d done everything she could do to numb the pain.
There was nothing numbing it now.
She swallowed past her dry throat.“I miss you, Devlin.I miss you so fucking much.The world went to hell without you in it, and I don’t know how to do any of this without you.”Her chest burned, each breath a physical fight she didn’t know if she would win.“You left and the rest of us fell like dominoes.One right after the other.”She reacheda shaking hand to mime tipping over the first domino.“What a fucking waste.”
Keira closed her eyes in an effort to keep the burning inside, and when she opened them again, the light had changed.Darkness reigned, which was fitting, becausehewas there, sitting on the edge of the bed, his expression unguarded for the first time since she’d seen him.She couldn’t work up the energy to do more than turn her head to get a better look at him.“Come to gloat?”
Dmitri didn’t move, but she felt his attention sharpen all the same.“You think so little of me.”
“Why should I think better?”She dragged in a breath, oxygen flooding her lungs.“You would have let my sister die.You would have let them all die.”A different shootout, a different enemy.Endless.The tide against her was endless.
“My priorities are not your priorities,moya koroleva.”
As if that made it better.As if she should be thankful that he apparently didn’t want her dead.Keira turned her face away, preferring to look at the strange wallpaper instead of his treacherous gray eyes.Was the curving print moving?She closed her eyes and opened them again.This time, there was no time jump.It was still dark.He was still here, taking up too much room.She shivered.“I’m cold.”
“You’re burning up.”A cool hand against her forehead.“The good doctor assured me this is normal, but…” He smoothed her hair back, the touch gentle.If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend this was another time, another place.That she was just a woman and he was just a man, and nothing stood between them and the fabled happily ever after.
Hers wasn’t that kind of story.
If Dmitri had a role in her life, it was as the villain wholocked the princess in the tower.But Keira wasn’t a princess, and the Russian was hardly a beast looking for a magic kiss to turn him into something less monstrous.
She had to remember that, but it was so hard to keep her eyes open.“You promised peace.”
“I promised to do everything in my power to ensure peace, short of sacrificing myself on the O’Malley altar.”
