I run a hand through my hair and force the images away.
At least now I know.
Now I finally understand why she wanted me dead, even if it is not the whole truth.
And I respect that.
If she believed I was a rapist, I respect her for trying to rid the earth of me.
But nothing stands in my way anymore.
Because enough is enough.
I will have my girl.
I will make her see that I am not that kind of monster.
And I will make her breathe me the way I breathe her.
Chapter 22
Octavia
I didn’t think I could hate myself more than I already did.
Apparently, I was wrong.
For days now, the kiss has replayed in my head without reprieve. Not just the act itself, but the moment it broke something I believed had already been destroyed.
Shame and guilt, tangled with betrayal, twist together, accompanied by emotions I refuse to name.
He didn’t do it.
He is not one of them.
The truth lodges inside me.
The disgust in his eyes when she said it. The way something in him recoiled.
Markev would never commit that kind of crime.
I know it as surely as I know my own name.
And I hate that I know it.
Yesterday, I went into town with my sister, making space for some much needed time together.
We spent the entire day at the salon, moving easily from one appointment to the next—nails, waxing, massages, pedicures—without once checking the time.
I refreshed the pink in my hair and had it trimmed slightly.
I should have felt relaxed, yet the entire time I felt anything but.
My skin prickled throughout, unsettled by the persistent sensation of being watched.
I never once saw him, but I felt him all the same, that unmistakable awareness curling low at the base of my spine. I cannot be certain it was Markev, though I am convinced it was him regardless.
Ophelia kept glancing over her shoulder, which only confirmed what I already suspected, she felt it too.
