Because I had.
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t?—”
But I did. And it was. There’s no denying it now.
I see my crime with horrible clarity. And I remember—my fingers tightening around the knife, my arm rising, the bladereflecting the moonlight. My mother’s peaceful sleep, and then the awful scream she let out when I hit her.
I fall to my knees.
Hands begin to shake my shoulders, but I can’t snap out of what’s flashing through my head, can’t escape the truth that’s currently crashing into me.
What happened to my mother…it wasn’t a heart attack.
And my nightmares…they weren’t just dreams.
It was me.
“I killed her,” I breathe.
37
Mikhail
I’m out on the streets when I look up and see Remus again—right there, out on his balcony, leaning against the balustrade, an unlit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.
I’m hiding behind the corner of his building, in a patch of shadow where I have a direct view of his profile. If he turned to the side, he’d be able to see me, but he doesn’t, which tells me he probably deduced I was still here somewhere.
He looks different from how I imagined him—not nerdy at all, that’s for sure. Instead, he’s got buzz-cut hair, sharp jaw, and marred skin, like a shark who keeps rising to the top after every fight with other ocean predators. For someone who only recently found out he’s the heir to a criminal empire, he sure as fuck carries a lot of trained muscle.
Rodion and Niko keep asking me for updates, but something makes me turn off the earpiece instead. I lean against the wall, waiting to see what Remus will do next.
The clink of a lighter breaks the silence, and smoke begins to dance above his head. He inhales slowly, expelling it just as controlled, as if every breath could be his last.
“You smoke?” he asks, continuing to look ahead, Italian accent sharp on his tongue.
The corner of my mouth twitches upward. I don’t step out of the shadow I found, but I don’t leave either.
“Used to. I quit,” I say.
His head bobs as he takes another drag of nicotine, silence stretching between us, two monsters acknowledging each other, sizing each other up.
“I started young,” he says. “Kept me from feeling hunger. Now, I can’t seem to let go of the past.”
“How dramatic.”
He smiles. “Dramatic would be calling in my guys to hunt you down.”
“Others would call it smart,” I say.
“If I did what everyone expected me to do, I’d never get anywhere in life. I’m sure you agree,Mikhail.”
My brows shoot up. How the fuck does he know who I am?
A slow laugh. “I like that silence. It’s my reward for being underestimated. Better than any fucking cigarette,” he says, discarding it over the balustrade. “Did you find what you were looking for in my apartment?”
“If you hadn’t been so sloppy, I wouldn’t have found shit.”
“I like to think of it as generous.”
