“Thirty years,” she continues. “Thirty years I’ve spent trying to love my daughter. And somehow, every single time, I make everything worse.” She meets my eyes, and the pain there is as ancient as it is familiar. “So don’t sit there thinking you’ve cornered the market on destroying the people you love, Bastian. You’re an amateur compared to me.”
I recognize something of myself in her words. I know how it is to braid your own failures into a whip and beat yourself with it until your back is raw and bloody.
“I understand,” I croak. “That impulse to protect someone so fiercely that you end up killing them in your own way…”
Georgia’s eyes sharpen. “Is that what you did to my daughter?”
“Yes. That and worse. I killedforher. Died for her. And still couldn’t manage to justbe therewhen she needed me.”
Georgia snorts. “That sounds about right. Men like you always think love is about grand gestures and dramatic sacrifices. Bleeding out on some woman’s bathroom floor and the like.” She points at me. “When really, it’s about showing up, day after day, boring and unglamorous andthere.” She purses her lips. “Anyone can die for someone, Bastian. Living for them? That’s the hard part.”
45
ELIANA
THREE DAYS LATER
second seating /'sek?nd 'sediNG/: noun
1: later service after the first wave of guests has cleared.
2: when the dead walk through your door again and you have to decide whether to scream or hold on.
The pullout couch is ruined. I can’t stop touching it.
My fingers trace the jagged edges where Bastian’s knife tore through the fabric. I touch the exposed springs that jut up like broken ribs, the foam stuffing he gutted and scattered across the floor like entrails.
Nobody’s cleaned it up. Nobody’s dared to touch anything in this room since Zeke came back alone.
Since Zeke came backalone.
“El.” Yasmin’s voice floats somewhere above me. “You need to eat something.”
I don’t answer. My thumb finds a vicious tear in the upholstery and presses into it. It’s like thumbing my own gaping wound; that’s how bad it hurts.
“Please.” Her hand settles on my shoulder. “Just some toast. Anything.”
The baby wobbles inside me, a flutter of protest or hunger or both. That started happening the night Bastian left. I should care about it, I know I should care, and I do, I do, I do. But…
“What were my last words to him?” I hear myself ask. “I can’t remember, Yas. I can’t remember if I was cruel.”
“Sweetheart, you can’t think like that. You’re going down a bad path.”
I shove her hand off of me. “I pushed him away every chance I got, and now, he’s—he’s—he’s?—”
I can’t say it.
“We don’t know anything yet,” Yasmin insists half-heartedly. “Zeke said they took him.Took, not killed. That’s different.”
I laugh like a deranged woman. “Aleksei doesn’t take prisoners, Yas. That’s the whole fucking point of being a mob boss.”
I press my palm flat against my stomach and try not to cry. This child will never know their father’s voice. Never hear him sing that Russian lullaby:Spi, mladenets moy prekrasny.
Then a car pulls into the driveway and my heart stops.
I’ve learned to dread the sound of tires on gravel. I’m conditioned now, like one of Pavlov’s dogs, except instead of drooling, I spiral into terror. As I listen, two car doors slam.
Not one.
