Aleksandr
Because he’s trying to keep me from her.
And he will pay.
The driveback from the hospital was completely silent. It wasn’t the peaceful kind of quiet. It was the kind that pressed in on my ears until I could hear my heartbeat, sharp and uneven, echoing through my skull. The kind that felt like a punishment.
Jules drove back to his house with both hands on the steering wheel, his knuckles white, and his jaw locked so tight I thought his teeth might crack.
He hadn’t said a word since we left the hospital. Not when the nurse helped me into the backseat. Not when I hissed softly as the movement pulled at my shoulder. Not even when I whispered his name, testing the air between us like I used to when we were children, and I’d broken something important.
But his eyes said everything. He was disappointed with me. And there was nothing I could do to make this situation better.
I sat rigidly upright, my back pressed against the cold leather. I felt like a prisoner in the backseat. Jules’s eyesoccasionally glanced back in the mirror as if he expected me to jump out of the moving car. Maybe if my arm wasn’t hurting so much, I would have.
The doctor said the pain would follow me for weeks. A deep bruise had already started to form where the wound was stitched together, and I’d been given medication to last me through the worst of it. Thick, white bandages were placed over the hole where the bullet had gone cleanly through my body, though they were already starting to bloom a faint shade of pink from all of my movement.
The doctor had said I was lucky. That my surgery to repair the minor tissue was simple, and that I would be able to return to normal life in a few weeks once I was discharged in the morning. But he didn’t know that therewasno normal life for me. Not anymore.
I’d cracked my world open and shattered all the pieces. So despite my doctor’s words, I’d spent the past night in the hospital feeling very, very unlucky.
My injured arm was strapped tight against my body in a sling that felt more like a shackle than medical equipment. Every bump in the road sent a sharp, white-hot reminder through my shoulder, the pain blooming and curling down my arm like fire. But I didn’t react, because everything hurt me.
It hurt to breathe. To think. To live. Without Alek there to comfort me, my life was filled with pain.
I stared at my lap, at the hand that had held his only a day ago. My dress had been changed at the hospital, the other one cut away with surgical precision. One of Julian’s guards—a freakingguard—had brought me a new outfit. The pink was gone, replaced with gray sweatpants and an oversized hoodie that smelled faintly of antiseptic and plastic packaging. The sweatshirt, of course, was black.
It seemed fitting. No more pink, no more ribbons, nothing. Because I knew my life was about to not be mine anymore.
I swallowed hard through the realization.
Alek’s face kept flashing whenever I closed my eyes. The sound of his voice as he vowed to find me echoed in my ears. I couldn’t get over the way his hands had shaken as he held me, like he was afraid I’d disappear if he loosened his grip even a fraction. Like I was already halfway gone. Like maybe, just maybe, he loved me too.
My heart ached worse than my shoulder.
This is it,I thought numbly as the city passed me by.This is the end.
The end of sweet kisses and burning tension. The end of whispered promises about a future that wasn’t to come. The end of feeling like I was finally somebody worth knowing, somebody worth fighting for.
Because I knew that Alek would want nothing to do with me after this. Why would he? I was a total mess. I was his enemy’s sister, the girl responsible for the wreck that killed his sister. I was not worth all of this trouble, all of this heartache and pain. I was?—
“Not perfect,” a voice in me whispered.
Julian cleared his throat, and the sound made me flinch, jostling my arm. He looked back at me, eyes hard. “I’ve already taken your phone. You will not receive it back until I am certain you will not try to contact him.”
“Jules—”
“No.”
The word landed like a slammed door. Maybe even a coffin lid. There would truly be no more messages from Alek, no more smiling at my screen as he listed all the ways he thought I was beautiful.
My whole life. Gone.
“You’re not leaving the house,” Jules said flatly. “For two weeks, you will remain in your room, resting your shoulder. If I think you are good enough to return to rehearsals, you may go and watch, but I will be aware of all rehearsal start times, and I expect you back at the car no less than a minute after they end.”
My stomach dropped. He was treating me like a child. And worse, he was laying down all these rules while refusing to look at me. “Jules,” I whispered brokenly.
“You will not see anyone without my express permission. Mia will not be coming over until I’m certain she had nothing to do with this—which, knowing your nosy friend, she did. And you sure as hell won’t see him ever again.”
