“You mean did he include the part about her assuming I didn’t care whether she lived or died?” I grunted and drank more. “Yeah, he told me.”
She nodded, not making eye contact as she sat across from me. “I’m not one to judge or offer parenting advice. And I can tell this is a complicated situation.” She held both hands up in a truce. “I don’t want to know. I’m not someone who needs to know. The less I know, the better. But… I’m sorry you had to hear a hard truth like that.”
“That’s not the least of my fucking worries, either.” I stood, pacing and ranting about all that was going to hell. The Popovs taking Anya. The Giovannis messing with our businesses. I couldn’t help how dark of a mood I was in. With her as my audience of one—despite her admitting she was operating on the basis of the less she knew, the better—I couldn’t shut the hell up. Venting to her felt safe. Like she would help me by hearing me out with all these vague grievances I aired.
I stopped to drop into the chair again, wishing I felt lighter with all I’d unloaded on her. I didn’t, though. Dark thoughts and angry emotions swirled like a cloud in my head and over it.
“Please, Mikhail. Just…”
“Justwhat?” I snapped, curious and annoyed that she would have the audacity to suggest how I clean up the current mess of my life.
“Please don’t rush to what seems to be your status quo. Don’t spill any more blood and go out to kill them all like you say you will and?—”
“Stop.” I lifted my hand, hating how this chasm between our worlds widened even more. “Stop right there.”
“I’m only saying that more deaths and violence can’t always be the answer.”
“For you.” I narrowed my eyes, wishing she could see that I wasn’t a monster because I wanted to be. It was because I had to be. I was made to be this ruthless, and if I wanted to play martyr or delude myself with sainthood, all my men and family members would be killed. It was very much a hard game of kill or be killed. I couldn’t vouch for her, but I knew damn well which side of that equation I wanted to end up on.
“This is the only life I know. The only way I know.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
I stood, pacing again. Shaking my head at her naïve claim, I wished she could open her fucking eyes and give up this idea that she could change me. To make me more like someone she’d approve of. “I am powerful for a reason, Claire.”
“I’m not denying that.” She stood, frowning at me.
“And you shouldn’t forget that I’m keeping you safe, too.”
“I never asked you to.”
I bit back a growl. “So you would’ve rather I left you with that Giovanni so he could shoot you? Huh?”
“No, but there has to be another way?—”
“What, to go to the cops? The Popovs have half of them on their fucking bankroll, Claire. I said it before and I’ll say it again. Not everything is as black and white as you want it to seem.”
“Oh, so that’s it. Born a mobster and that’s it. It’s fated.” She slapped her arms over each other, almost like a defensive, haughty self-hug.
“What’s your game here?”
She lowered her arms. “I have no game, dammit! You brought me here. You made me stay here.” She swallowed hard, looking off to the side for a second. Her faltering with her hard words meant something, but I was in too damn dark of a mood to lighten up and wonder what it was.
“That’s a funny way of thanking me for saving your fucking life.”
“I guess we’re even then, huh?” She snarled as she backed up. “I saved your life and you saved mine.”
Not really. She also helped me with Anya. She also sated me in that one forbidden night we’d shared. Marking a tally with her was bullshit and she knew it too.
“I want to leave, Mikhail.”
I glared at her, damning her inability to meet me in the middle.
“I should leave.”
Wording it so similarly yet differently showed a hell of a contrast, like maybe she wasn’t really interested in going but felt like she was obligated to.
“Oh, really?” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and found the video I’d been saving, unsure of when to share it with her. “Because it’s so safe out there, huh?”
