Chapter Thirty-Nine
Maksim.
Damon stares at me with those silver flames of his; he opens his mouth then closes it, like he’s looking for the words to say, then opens it again. “I believe Parker is correct in this aspect. I believe you are dealing with survivor’s guilt along with… everything else. The sticky tar feeling that you feel has latched on to you? That’s… depression.” he says carefully like I might implode.
I rub my fingertips over the length of the inside of my thumb and grimace. “I just need to know what happened to me. It’ll fix everything.”
“What happens if you never know, Maksim? The place was left in ruins.”
“I don’t know. It’ll take me longer to get over it?”
“You won’t ever justget over it,Maksim. You were taken, detained, starved, then hunted like an animal in the dead of a wintery night.” His words make my skin crawl like little tiny worms are writhing under the dermis.
I look away from him. “Don’t you think I fucking know that?”
“So then what happens when you don’t get over it because you may never know what truly happened to you? Your wife? Parker? Your marriage? The Cosa Nostra? What happens to all of them? It’s a heavy crown. Will it fall upon Sabrina?”
“Why are you saying this to me?”
“Because I am asking you a simple question, Maksim. Will you still treat Sabrina like shit and like she’s nothing more than a hole to you? What happens when she bears your children? Will you treat them indifferently?”
“No.”
“No,what, Maksim? Hmm? Will you let this continue to fester until it rules you? Or has you acting impulsively instead of instinctually and with your brain?”
“Why are you being a fucking dick?”
His brows arch then furrow like he’s surprised I’ve called him that. “Because these are possibly the questions ruminating in your wife’s mind at all times, Maksim. She’s mentally preparing herself to carry the burden of the weight of the crown if you cannot.”
“I… how do you know this? Is this what you two talk about?”
He shakes his head. “No, Maksim. It’s because we’ve seen her do it time and time again. Every time she sits across from me in that same seat you’re in, I can feel her anxiety like clouds rolling down a mountainside. As my patient, I cannot tell you anything she and I talk about in this room. As her friend and yours, I can see her shrinking back into the pink armor she had on for a very long time. The pink armor and smiley facade. She’s preparing herself to do it all alone.”
I blink at the ground tentatively. “She hasn’t worn pink…”
“No,” Damon sighs. “She hasn’t.”
“She flung cupcake batter at me.”
“I was made aware.”
“We had sex. The three of us.”
He dips his chin without judgement, just waiting for me to proceed.
“It doesn’t fix everything.”
“No, it does not, Maksim.” When I don’t say anything else because really, what else is there to say, he continues. “There’s a group counseling—”
“Group counseling?” I bark out a laugh and get to my feet. “Are you kidding me? You want me to talk in front of a group of fucking strangers to me, but they probably know who I am, and introduce myself? Hey, I’m Maksim Giordano, Capo dei Capi of the Cosa Nostra and owner of Eden. Oh, and let’s not forget the worst Pakhanever. Yeah, I was kidnapped, and now I have survivor’s guilt because I promised a girl I didn’t even know I was gonna save her, and I couldn’t. My wife, thinking she was pregnant, and our boyfriend, ran into open fire to save me, killing and pissing on the dude that raped her. But poor little me, I can’t remember if I was toucheddown there,and it’s driving me so fucking crazy I have nightmares about it every night. I wake up sweating, and yeah, there are days I can’t… I can't look at my wife because it feels like I disappointed her.”
There’s something swelling in my chest, getting caught right in the middle of my sternum. So I rub at it to make it stop. “They did something to me. Each time it was harder and harder to wake up. The last time, my legs… they wouldn’t work, Damon. I thought they’d paralyzed me. She helped me the entire time while getting out. Sometimes… sometimes I’m scared I haven’t woken up and this is a goddamn dream. An endless nightmare-ish loop. I go to the office, I do all the things, then I go home to her, and she’s baking or studying, just being herself, but she’s not really herself.
“She doesn’t sing anymore. There’s no pink—which is fucking nuts because the entire house is an ad for Pepto. Then nighttime comes around, and I… I’m stuckthereagain. I wake up drenched in sweat, and it’s like I’ve been pinched and poked to death. It feels like bees swarming under my skin.”
“And that’s every night?”
I sigh, resting my hands on my hips. “Not… not lately.”
