He laid me down on my favorite couch, but when he went to move away, I gripped onto his shirt like it was a life raft drifting back to the sea.
“Please,” I whispered.
Dmitri stared at me, his eyes unreadable.
He sat down on the couch and pulled me into the warmth of his lap. I curled into his broad chest. We just laid there in silence while I continued to clutch onto his shirt like he might leave any minute if I let go.
White snowflakes pierced the dark night, and I smiled for the first time since Natalya’s death.
Dmitri followed my gaze, an unspoken question in his eyes.
“I guess, I’ll have to stay one more night,” I said.
A dark light shone in his eyes. He chuckled quietly, the rumble of his chest a soothing beat.
“If that’s okay,” I added.
My lungs tensed up at the thought of having to go back into the cold world alone, and spend the night curled in a ball at my freezing apartment.
“It’s okay, kotenok.” Dmitri absently played with my hair, and I leaned into his touch. “Honestly, I thought you’d be too mad at me to want to see my face for a while.”
I reared back, immediately missing the comforting warmth of his body. “Why would you think that?”
“I murdered your friend,” he said with a shrug. He said it so simply, without even a hint of remorse in his eyes.
“She would’ve tried to kill me if you hadn’t,” I said woodenly. All the sadness and emotion numbed my system as I spoke of it for the first time since it happened. “I wonder if I could’ve done anything differently.”
Pain lanced my stomach.
It was done. No matter how long I thought back on the possibilities it still wouldn’t bring her back.
“No,” he said, a finality in his voice. “If you didn’t obey, the Pakhan would’ve just killed you both.”
There was an unspoken reminder in his sentence:Just like he would’ve killed you and your brother if I hadn’t picked for you.
“I hate him,” I said, anger swarming through my body like a hive of gnats.
“Who?” Dmitri asked, playing with my hair again.
“The Pakhan and his egotistical fucking game.”
Dmitri’s hand froze in my hair, and his entire face hardened.
“Never say that again.” He gripped my hair so tightly that it was almost painful.
I stared at him incredulous. “You can’t seriously be okay with all of this? He could kill any of us tomorrow just because he feels like it, and there’snothingwe can do.”
“Everything the Pakhan does is for a reason,” Dmitri said, his voice hard. “So therealquestion is: Why did he send out a kill order on you?”
His gaze was penetrating as he stared intently at me. I understood how so many of his prey must’ve felt moments before he pounced and ended their lives. Fear swallowed me as I imagined that’s exactly what I’d become if I admitted what the Pakhan had asked of me.
I also knew if I hid this from him, it’d just broaden the distance between us. Maybe this was just temporary, but when I was with him, it felt like I could finally let my guard down and feel safe.
What I said was true: the Pakhan could kill me just because he felt like it. And I was sure it wouldn’t help my chances if I revealed that he was snooping around for dirt on Dmitri.
Despite that, I refused to let the Pakhan destroy this little slice of happiness I’d carved out in my life.
“He asked me for information on you,” I said.
