I punch the wall again and again. The cuts deepen. My hand is wet with blood, the pain more and more intense. It’s nothing compared to how my heart feels.
I didn’t believe in her like I should’ve. I didn’t believe in us. I didn’t understand she was operating as a double agent, pretending to have gone over to a rival gang to save her mother. All we knew was that she’d given secrets to the enemy. Kissed their leader, Sergei. We had photos. We had recordings of phone calls. It was only later that we put it together, how she planned to turn it all back on them after she had her mother back safely. We found a notebook where she’d worked it all out, and I could see the Rubik’s Cube thinking in it.
But it was too late. I was nineteen and so in love, I couldn’t see straight. So in love with her that I was beyond listening, beyond reach. Beyond anything. And the gang my only family. And I killed her.
The hole in the wall grows red with my blood. I should’ve believed in her.
“Viktor!”
“I’ll fuck you and hurt you and take you from your stupid god and you can’t stop me.” I slam my fist in even harder. Pain shoots up my arm. “And don’t say my name like you know me.”
That’s when the shot rips out, like an explosion in the wall to my right. I still and turn, ears ringing, pulse racing.
She has my Glock. The rug is bunched up on the floor. Did she use the rug to pull the gun to her? “Get over here,” she growls.
My throbbing fist is warm with blood. “Tanechka?”
She gestures with the gun at a spot on the floor in front of her. “Now.”
Mischa bursts into the room.
“Leave us,” I say.
He turns and leaves.
I turn my attention back to Tanechka. I want to cry. She’s back.
Again she gestures at the floor.
My heart pounds as I fall to my knees in front of her. She gazes down at me so strangely. I don’t know what it is. I think it’s her hate stare, grown so hot it’s gone cold. Like the dark side of the sun.
I grab her legs. “I’m sorry, Tanechka.” I bury my face in her thighs, making her jeans wet with tears and blood. “I didn’t believe in us, and I was so rash, so wrong, so, so sorry. I’d die a million times to take it back—”
“Get off me,” she growls.
My heart pounds.
Tanechka!
I never thought I’d see her again. Once more she gestures with the gun. “Lie down. Facedown on the floor.”
Cold shivers go over me. She means to shoot me execution style.
It’s only right.
Except I want to die looking at her. I want to look at her as I breathe my last breath, as the pain melts away.
“Down! Do it!”
I swallow. I will obey. This is what I’ve earned, then. To die alone at her hands, face shoved into the bearskin rug.
I suck in a breath and lay myself in front of her, fingers knit behind my neck. I weep into the rough fur, thinking about our quest to find Kiro, this brother I’ll never know. My love for Aleksio. Most of all, Tanechka. She makes the world beautiful. She’s back.
And now this pain I’ve carried for so long will be washed clean by the only person who can wash it.
“I’m not afraid,” I say.
She’s silent, standing over me. What’s she thinking? What’s she waiting for?
I cast her into the gorge even as she begged me not to. She clung to me to the last. We were lost together. We were soul mates. We were each other’s island. She clung to me as I cast her off.
“Make me suffer as I made you suffer. End this.”
She kicks at my hands. “Hands down. Lie on your side.”
I press my hands to my sides and lie on one of them, holding my breath. Whatever way she wants it.
She stands over me. I look at her stocking feet. The ragged ends of the jeans. “Eyes shut,” she commands.
I shut my eyes. I hear a soft rustling sound above me. I hear her behind me. What is she doing? I feel a tickle on the back of my head. A hand over my arm. She stretches her body out behind mine. She presses a kiss to the back of my neck, arm draped over me, gun still in her hand.
And holds me.
Something in me breaks.
I begin to weep.
“You’re worthy of God’s forgiveness,” she says. “You’re worthy of God’s love.”
Like a baby I weep. I don’t want her fake god’s love or forgiveness.
But this strong fierce female feels so like Tanechka, shining with goodness. It fucks me up.
Still she holds the gun—her hand isn’t on the trigger, but on the grip. She allows it to hang lazily from her hand in front of me as she holds me.
This, too, is so like Tanechka, her Glock an accessory as much as the hoop earrings she so loved to wear. As much as the snake chain necklaces that would lie across her skin, sliding slyly along the curves of her collarbone.
“I’m not worthy. Not of you.”
“Shh,” she says, pulling me tighter.
I’m so tired, so, so tired.
I close my eyes, imagining my fierce, glorious female has come back to me. Except Tanechka wouldn’t be holding me like this.
Tanechka was never one to forgive her enemies.
“Shh,” she says again.
Chapter Twenty
Lazarus