Page 215
“Dead,” Ilya says, the word flat, dead, devoid of anything human. I watch the trembling line of his mouth.
“My whole fucking life was a lie,” he whispers, staring past me at the white plaster wall. “It was a ghost story, and the sick thing is… I would have given it to her. The title. I loved her so much. If she had just walked into my room and asked me for it, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I would have handed her everything and walked away.”
My heart wrenches behind my cracked ribs at all the pain he must feel. I wish I could take it all away from him. He didn’t deserve any hurt. I still remember the little boy who pressed a piece of candy into my hand when I was starving. Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d taken his hand that day and run. If I’d stolen him away.
“And now?” I ask, keeping my tone low. “How do you feel about her now?”
Ilya looks down at me. The vulnerability is there, but beneath it, the steel snaps back into place. That lethal fire I recognized the second I laid eyes on him.
“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “I miss the person I thought she was. The twin who used to sit on the garden wall with me. I think I’ll always mourn that. You can’t just turn off years of love because someone put a gun to your head. But the person who stood on that cliff was the person who almost killed you.” His green eyes narrow, hard and merciless. “And I’d put another five bullets into her for that.”
“I’m sorry,” I press my lips together. “I should have looked into it sooner. I should have known what Anton was do—”
“Don’t.” Ilya cuts me off, his free hand coming up to grip the side of my face. “Stop it. You couldn’t have known. I didn’t let you. I kept pushing you away, fighting you at every turn, because I was terrified of you seeing how broken I was. I hid it.”
“I see you,” I tell him, lifting my hand to cover his where it rests on my cheek. “Every single piece of you. And I’m never letting anyone hurt you again. I promise.”
“I’ll never let anyone hurt you either,” he says. “I promise.”
He leans in, and the distance disappears. His lips brush against mine as he breathes me in. “They were fake,” he whispers against my mouth. “You are real.”
Kento
I am being released, which means I am officially Ilya’s problem full-time.
“Stop moving,” Ilya snaps.
He’s standing between my parted knees as I sit on the edge of the mattress. His lower lip is slightly swollen from where I bit it twenty minutes ago, before the nurse brought the discharge papers.
“I’m not moving, prince,” I say, leaning back against the raised bed frame. “I’m breathing. That’s usually recommended for living.”
“Well, breathe quieter. You’re stretching the gauze.”
He takes my right arm and eases it into the sleeve, his fingers skimming over the bruised crook of my elbow like he thinks I’ll turn to ash if he uses more than two pounds of pressure.
I catch his wrist. “You’re fussing.”
“I am not fussing.” He yanks his wrist free with zero real force and grabs the other sleeve. “I’m dressing a giant so we can leave this hellhole.” He slides the left sleeve over my injured shoulder, his touch turning feather-light, his breath hitching when I let out a tiny hiss through my teeth. His green eyes snap up to mine. “Did I hurt you?”
“Ilya.” I sigh. “I’m fine. You’re doing great.”
He glares at me, the tips of his ears going bright pink. Before he can answer, the door to the private room swings open without a knock, and Kenji steps into the room.
Kenji looks at me sitting on the bed. His gaze drops to the bandages beneath the open collar of my shirt, then rises back to my face.
“You survived,” Kenji says. His voice is calm. “Good. It would have been an inconvenience to burn New York to the ground in your name.”
“Kenji—”
“You’re Kenji?” Ilya asks. The tone is deceptively sweet. Completely poisonous.
Kenji’s eyes flicker toward him, unimpressed, his chin lifting. “I am.”
Crack.
Ilya steps forward and smacks Kenji across the face with everything he has.
The two bodyguards in the hall draw their guns, and I’m fully prepared to kill every one of them if they even raise it toward Ilya.
