He had not lifted it.
The choice sat there anyway.
I stepped toward him.
Vadim went still.
I touched his injured knuckles first. The skin was swollen across two of them, split where he’d hit Gennady. I turned his hand over, palm up. Heavy. Warm. Capable of so much damage. Capable of holding a glass of water out to me like it mattered whether I drank.
“He bled on you,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
The word left me before I could make it prettier.
Vadim’s eyes darkened.
I rubbed my thumb along the edge of the swelling. “Does that shock you?”
“No.”
“It probably should.”
“Why?”
“Because decent women are supposed to be horrified by violence.”
“Decent women are often lied to by men who want the right to commit violence first.”
My thumb stopped.
His voice stayed calm. “Gennady put his hands on your wrist, your life, your brother, and a room full of men paid to watch your fear. You’re allowed to be glad he bled.”
The breath that left me didn’t feel like relief. It felt older than that. Like something in my ribs had been braced so long I had mistaken the ache for bone.
“I don’t want to be a person who needs that,” I said.
“You do not need his blood. You need him stopped. The blood was mine.”
I looked up at him.
The robe shifted against my skin. His eyes followed the movement this time, not down to the opening, but to my hand where it held the silk together at my chest.
Heat crossed his face and went nowhere. He caged it behind control so quickly I might have missed it if I had not spent last night learning what that control looked like when it broke.
My pulse changed.
“I need to get dressed,” I said again.
“Yes.”
Neither of us moved.
His hand was still in mine.
I should have let go.
