“Bella, are you sure?”
“I am.” My voice cracks. “I don’t want to go home.”
I hate that I sound so pathetic right now. I hate that I’m sitting here in a soaking-wet one-piece with Slava’s towel around my shoulders, hair plastered to my skull and neck like seaweed, mascara running down my cheeks.
I hate that I’m asking the man I want to destroy for comfort.
But I can’t go home.
Tonight, I can’t walk into my apartment and pretend that everything’s fine. I can’t pick up Anthony from Lydia’s and look him in the eye. I can’t crawl into my bed alone and lie there in the dark, replaying every second of Don Leo’s hands on me, his cigar forced between my lips, and the way he saidI think she likes it, boyswhile his men laughed on cue.
I can’t be alone right now. I’m afraid to be alone.
“Take me with you.” The words feel like broken glass in my throat. “Please. I just…” I shiver. “I can’t.”
I let my voice trail away into nothing.
Slava looks at me. Not with pity but with something that neither of us is prepared to give a name to. He holds my gaze for a long moment, and I wait for him to say no.
He should say no. I’ve certainly said no to this offer before, and in circumstances that—truthfully speaking—is no less terrifying than this.
But he doesn’t say no. He just nods once, takes my hand in his, and leans over until I’m enveloped in his warmth.
The car continues on its course, and I feel something in my chest unknot.
Just slightly.
But it’ll have to be enough for now.
The ride takes an hour,and I spend most of it curled against Slava’s side like a mouse seeking warmth from a radiator.
I’m aware of how pathetic it is. The stubborn, avenging sister currently clinging to the man she’s supposed to destroy like he’s a very expensive emotional support animal.
If there were a Nobel Prize for self-sabotage, I would be crossing the stage to accept my award right about now.
But his body is warm, and minehurts.
Not just the obvious places—the back of my skull where Don Leo’s hand connected, but my lungs that still feel scraped raw from the seawater, and my ribs that might be bruised or cracked from the CPR.
But deeper than that is the pain in my bones and soul. In the hollow space behind my mask of defiance and bravery, where something important used to live before I started this whole godforsaken revenge plan.
Slava’s arm is around my shoulders and across my chest. His hand cradles my cheek while his thumb traces the line of my jaw.
I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it. The gesture is automatic and thoughtless, like someone soothing a frightened animal.
I take a deep pull of his comforting scent, curl my legs under me, and move just a little bit closer.
Outside the window, the millions of small lives of New York continue to happen behind closed doors. There, no one is drowning, no one is being groped by fat old Mafia bosses, and no one is coming face to face with the reality of playing a dangerous game with stakes almost too high to imagine.
Because that’s what happened tonight.
And it took looking death in the eyes to finally realize that.
They didn’t die so you can follow them to the grave, Bella.Lydia warned me the first night I came face to face with death and walked away because of Slava.
Hell, even Slava warned me when he told me to stop digging.
But did I listen to either of them?
