“We’re clear,” I say once I’m done, pocketing my phone.
Her shoulders relax, if only a little.
I lean against the table. “I wanted to check in. On you.” I make deliberate eye contact, looking into her big blue eyes behind even bigger glasses. I wait.
She considers me for a beat, then relaxes her shoulders and says, “I’m better. Now that it’s out. Lighter, I think, even if everything else feels heavier.”
That fucking resonates. “I’m glad you don’t have to carry it alone anymore.”
She meets my gaze. “Me too. And—” She hesitates. “I’m glad you know. You, Eva, Enzo. The whole truth.”
“Me too.”
She gives me a faint smile.
“I’ll be honest…I thought my childhood was rough. You make having a single mom who worked as an escort seem fucking beige.”
Luna laughs. A genuine smile crosses her face. “You? Beige? Not possible.”
“Phew. I was worried.”
“How was Pippa after we left?”
Now it’s my turn to smile. “I’m afraid to say this out loud, but…” A pause.
“The two people you want most in the world might be figuring their shit out?” Luna finishes.
That makes me laugh. “That’s what I’ve always loved about you, Steele. You see the truth.”
She stiffens and her smile falters a bit.
“Shit, sorry, what did I say?” I ask.
“No, Hudson—” She takes a deep breath then takes a seat at the table in the center of the room.
I join her but remain silent.
“I never knew. I had no idea who our dad really was. What theparties were. What Sophie and Konstantin did to find girls. I just… I didn’t see it. I know once Pippa and Jules started to realize certain things, they protected me. I try to tell myself it wasn’t my fault; I was so young. But I hate that I didn’t see it.”
“How could you have?”
She simply shakes her head. “I don’t know, but the day he was arrested… I was such a mess. I didn’t understand anything.”
“Jules said you were like, thirteen.”
She confirms and then continues, “I didn’t just lose my dad that day—a dad I didn’t know was a monster—but Junior was my best friend. I cared about him. I didn’t want to leave him alone with his dad. We left him with a monster.” A tear slides down her face. “It worries me that no one’s seen him in ten years.”
I nod slowly. “I didn’t know him as a child, but Luna, he wasn’t?—”
“I know he’s changed,” she says. “I’m not naïve, but… I knew the little boy he once was, and I feel guilty that we escaped and he didn’t.”
Another tear falls and she wipes it away quickly. “Anyway,” she continues, “I can’t bring this up to my sisters. They have enough to deal with. Now that we’re basically living at the Lucianos’, I feel like it’s disrespectful to them to even have these thoughts.”
“What thoughts?”
“I shouldn’t be worried about a Volkov. Not when Eva and Enzo?—”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t bring it up to either of them.” I aim for a bit of humor. “But you can’t help how you feel. Your caring heart is one of the things that everyone loves most about you.”
