“I’m not treating you like you’re made of glass. I’m protecting you. And our children.”
“By trapping me in one shiny tower and then another, giving me a personal babysitter?”
The worst part is I canfeelhow irrational I’m being. He has a duty to protect me. And it’s true that I’m basically a big, waddling target for whoever’s trying to kill me. But I hate being trapped. I hate being stashed away. I hate losing my freedom.
I need to bang on the bars of my cage, if only a little.
“You may not like how I protect you, but I’m doing it the only way I know how. You must think I’m a damn fool if you think I’m going to let the mother of my children wander around the city, when there are people out there who want to hurt you. There have already been two attempts on your life, for fuck’s sake.”
“No shit. I’m the one who was nearly run over and shot at, remember?”
“Of course, I remember, that’s why I’m doing this!” he shouts.
He takes a breath, looks away. Then he strides over to the bar and prepares a drink. I know him well enough by this point to understand that this is his way of buying himself a minute or two to regain control over his emotions.
He turns. “You need to understand. Peter has people out there, men watching.”
“They can’t possibly be watching 24/7.”
“Don’t be so sure. Besides, a little paranoia will keep you and our children alive.”
“At what cost?” My voice trembles, but I keep going. “You can’t control everything, Sasha. You think protection is love, but it’s just control dressed up.”
He exhales through his nose, slowly and dangerously. “If you step outside without my say-so, they’ll find you. This isn’t some low-rent gang of shitheads—these are dangerous killers. I won’t let them touch you. I willburn this citybefore I let that happen.”
The words hit me like a slap. There’s no doubt in my mind that he means them. I can see it in his eyes—the cold fire of a man who’s killed before and who would do it again without even flinching.
Maybe he thinks he’s being romantic, but in that moment, all I feel is fear.
“Do you even hear yourself? You’re talking about burning cities while I’m just trying to get through the day without breaking down.”
“But you’re not just you anymore. You’re responsible for the lives of those two children growing inside of you.”
“That doesn’t mean thatIstop existing! It doesn’t mean I’m just some walking incubator--”
I don’t get a chance to finish. Sasha pulls his arm back, launching his glass across the apartment. I watch as it sails across the vast expanse of the living room, the scotch trailing behind it in a faint arc. It hits the wall and shatters.
Before I have a chance to react, he turns to me and moves closer. My heart is racing. Something in his eyes terrifies me. Rage or fear or protectiveness—I can’t tell.
“I’m going to protect you,” he says. “Even if I have to protect you from yourself.”
The words hang between us like thick, acrid smoke.
“Sasha, you’re scaring me.”
He looks down. I follow his eyes down to my hands. They’re shaking. The second he notices them, his expression softens. Every part of him loosens like a string had just been cut. He steps back. His eyes flash with something like regret.
“I didn’t mean to…”
“Yeah,” I say. A tear trickles down my cheek, and I quickly wipe it away. “You never mean to.”
He tries to speak, hands half raised, palms open like he’s approaching a wounded doe. “Gabriella.” The hard, authoritarian edge to his voice is gone.
Another tear flows. Then another. They’re humiliating. In those moments, I hate him, but I also know what his anger is rooted in, why he feels it so strongly.
He tries for a step closer. I shake my head hard, backing away. “You don’t get it.” My voice breaks, then steadies. “You scare me because you don’t know where the line is.”
He opens his mouth for a moment, ready to fire back, but he closes it. He forms his mouth into a tight line, swallows.
