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“Yeah, I’d imagine it is,” I tell him. “Hopefully, I’ll be seeing you soon.”
“Hmm.” He nods, and I can tell he doesn’t believe it. When I was his age, Dad seemed like a god to me, like there was no way I could ever escape him. I can’t expect Drake to trust me, especially when I don’t trust myself.
“I love you,” he says after a moment. “Big, big time, okay?”
I grin. “I love you the biggest time.”
After we end the call, the smile slips from my face.
I sigh and lean back in the computer chair, running my hands through my hair. It was easier when I had something to focus on. When we were chasing data on the internet, I could slap on my headphones and pound the keys like my life depended on it. I didn’t have to think about anything else or worry about the future.
When somebody knocks on the bedroom door, I almost let out a pathetic little noise of fear. Then I bite down, reminding myself to get my act together. I can’t flinch or freak out all the time. I need to be stronger. I need to be more like Lia, but it’s tough sometimes.
“Yeah?” I call.
“It’s me,” Mikhail says, his voice deep and rough.
“Come in.”
After pushing the door open, he strides directly over to me and sweeps me into his arms. No matter how often we do this, it’ll never stop feeling perfect, like we’re fused. It’ll never stop feeling like all the bad things we’ve ever experienced led tothismoment—every single time.
He guides his lips to mine, kissing me with a passion that explodes out of him. It bursts into me forcefully. Something’s different about him. Maybe it makes me crazy to think this, but it’s almost like there’shopein the kiss. He smooths his hands down my body, then leans back, a smile on his lips.
“Good news?” I ask.
“I … think so,” he says after a pause.
“You don’t want to get my hopes up,” I say, looking into his eyes.
He laughs deeply. When he moves his hand, clearly meaning to brush the hair from his face, I reach up and do it instead. He smirks, takes my hand, and then tells me, “Oleg wants to take the Bratva from your father. With my father gone, yours is losing support. Soon, it could be time.”
I swallow. “Time for what?”
“Time for me to do the right thing,” he says fiercely. “Time for me to make this right. No father should ever hurt his children. Trust me, it’s not like that’sallNikolai is guilty of.”
A cold chord pulses through me. “What do you mean?”
“The trafficking,” Mikhail says. “Kidnapping innocent women. Forcing them to become wage slaves in a depraved profession.”
“I hate it,” I whisper. “I hate all of it—the life he’s built, the things he does and says.”
But… I try to swallow the word. Tears threaten to spring to my eyes and slide down my cheeks, yet I fight them away.
“I know,” Mikhail says. “He’s still your dad. This was never going to be easy. The second you told me what he did to you, heforfeited his life. This has to be the way. You can’t ask me to stop now.”
“I never said I was going to ask you tostop,” I say, disentangling myself from him and walking to the window. “I just wish …” I hesitate, then go on when he walks up behind me, gently wrapping his arms around my body. Part of me wants to fight him, but I can’t. The deep desire constantly gripping me won’t let me fight. “I wish I could code a new life. One where the man I …”Love?Is that the right word? Or am I just nuts? “… care about doesn’t have to kill my dad.”
“Me too,” Mikhail says, “but we can’t spend time wishing the world was different. All we can do is deal with the problem in front of us. I wish you had a good dad. I wish you had a real family, but we have each other. Maybe we could start a new family.”
Lia’s sketch punches into my mind, the woman holding the baby. A smile touches my lips, and I am confused and relieved that Mikhail can’t see my face. “We can’t talk about things like that. It’s too soon. There’s too much that could go wrong.”
“But you’d want to talk about it … if things were different?”
“Whatare we talking about?” I counter, knowing I’m just dancing away from the question. I can’t let myself sink into dreams of the future, into escaping Dad, Drake being safe, and the world not being so poisoned and wrong.
“You know what,” he says.
I don’t reply because I can’t be the one to start this conversation. It’s been, what, a couple of days? Time has blurred and performed some acrobatics, but that doesn’t mean it’s actuallybeena long time.
