A dizzy smile grips me.
I think about what he told me.
Enforcer.
Refusing to do what his boss said.
The devils who could be at his door any day.
But then I sink deeper into his embrace and let myself forget it all.
We can talk about it tomorrow.
Except tomorrow,he’s gone.
I wake with no warm presence beside me. Just an absence where he should be.
A note on the bedside table.
I loved you more in a day than I’ve loved anybody my entire life, Rose. If I don’t leave, I’m risking your life. So far, the Bratva doesn’t know who or where you are. That might change if I stick around.
I hope you can forgive me one day.
The note trembles in my hand. Tears sting my eyes.
I don’t forgive him. I can’t.
I didn’t even get a chance to tell him I love him too.
9
LEX
Idrive out of the city. Nothing in my car but weapons and a change of clothes. No destination in mind except far, far away.
The Bratva don’t know where I’ve been living. If I vanish now, I can keep it that way. I can keep Rose safe.
Every mile I put between me and her kills me.
When I told her about refusing to take out the kid, she looked at me with something like love in her eyes. Tears glistening with understanding—and maybe forgiveness.
I’m doing the right thing.
Keep driving.
I stop before I hit the highway. Pull up at the side of the road and climb out. Look at the skyline, the city, grind my teeth until I almost give myself a headache.
She was so confident last night, so beautiful. In her sleep, she murmured the wordlove. And that was what made me decideto leave. If I heard that word from her when she was lucid, I wouldn’t be able to abandon her. I’d stick close, risk her life.
Maybe next time, Oleg will start shooting. Maybe she’ll catch a bullet.
I meant what I said in the note. A day with her is a lifetime of emotion. She pierced me, changed me.
How can I go back to who I was before?
But I can’t ask her to run away with me. To leave her home unfinished, her mother’s final wish unfulfilled. It wouldn’t matter anyway.
As long as Nikolai is alive, she’ll always be in danger.
