“We are,” and once again, I feel tears pricking at my eyes. I take a deep breath to clear the emotion. “What is it you would like to do about Sver?”
“Would you be amenable to me cutting off his hands?”
I blink back my surprise. “What?”
“I can’t have him killing anyone else, Katarina. I’ll keep him alive if it matters to you, but he will have to pay.”
“I think I need to think about that one,” I answer quietly.
He gives a quick nod. “Of course.”
Win is right. We are creatures who understand each other, who can relax with one another, knowing that in moments of weakness, the other will be strong.
The car enters a familiar parking garage. “What are we doing here?” It’s the very apartment building I’d escaped from when I made the deal with Ryker.
“This is where the entire family is staying. We’ll have our own apartment, though Sasha and Ryker are in the penthouse.”
Sasha is here. So is my brother and all of Win’s family. I said I would never come back to this place, but by Win’s side, Iknow I’m not a prisoner. This time, it’s not a jail. It’s a bubble of protection. “I want to see my sister.”
“Of course,” he answers as we’re ushered to the elevator. He pulls out his cell phone to alert Ryker we’re coming.
I stare at the closed doors, the familiarity of the elevator is strange. It’s the same four walls, but everything else is different.
The doors slide open, Ryker standing on the other side of them waiting for us. I stop to see him, my eyes turning to slits as I glare. Speaking of Christmas, we might have a few awkward ones coming up... “If I’d known I was coming, I would have returned your ring.”
His brows lift, as he gives me an appraising stare. “You can keep it.”
Sasha appears in the kitchen, visible from the entrance.
Relief washes through me to see her, until my gaze slides down her. Her arms are covered in bandages. “What happened to my sister?”
Ryker’s hands come up. “Katarin?—”
But I charge past him, grabbing a knife from the block. “Who did that to you, Sasha?”
“Kat,” she chides. “I’m fine.”
But I hold the knife straight out. I don’t speak to Ryker though, but to Win. “If you are taking Sver’s hands, then I’m taking his dick. I won’t?—”
“I did it to myself, Katarina,” Sasha answers softly. “I…I just got…” She sighs. “I know you probably won’t understand, but no one loves me like they love you and?—”
I spin toward her, dropping the knife on the counter and race toward her. “I love you,” I cry, wrapping my arms around her.
“Katarina,” she starts. “You don’t have to say that. I know we’ve never been close.”
I’ve been so closed off. I see that now. It’s Win who has opened me again. Maybe that’s why I’ve suddenly started crying.Some emotional block has been cleared. “I love you, Sasha. I’m sorry I couldn’t say it before. I was so busy being a soldier that I forgot how to show love.”
“But you left me,” she cries. “Left me here.”
“I left to find Ivan. To end this. To make the world safer for both of us.”
Tears slide down her cheeks as she embraces me. We stand like that for a long time, just holding each other. I don’t explain more and neither does she.
I barely notice as the rest of the Smith family files into the kitchen.
I just hold my little sister, knowing that everything is different. My life, in nearly every way, is better.
I squeeze her tightly.
