Page 135 of Ghost Ribbon

“Do you know where he took him?”

“Probably showing him the garden.”

I arched an eyebrow. “The one I made?”

Dimitri’s head snapped toward me so fast I was surprised his neck didn’t crack.

“The fuck you mean you made?” His voice rose in pitch in that way it did when his pride was being threatened. “You just dug the holes!”

“Yes,” I clicked my tongue. “The hardest part.”

His face was doing the thing where it went red from the neck up. “I planted those flowers. I made it. Say that again and I will kill you.”

“You’ve been saying that since we were seven.”

“And one day I will mean it.”

“Today isn’t that day.”

He glared, then he sighed and switched the subject. “Don’t worry about Marco. He’ll bring him back.”

Dimitri found out about Marco’s condition because he was a certified fucking stalker.

He had gone through Ilya’s stuff and found the files I requested about Marco’s history.

Dimitri didn’t understand boundaries. He was, at his core, a man who believed that everything in his orbit belonged to him.

And then because apparently reading them wasn’t enough, he went to Ilya and started demanding answers.

Ilya, to his credit, didn’t want to tell him anything. He refused to answer, but then Dimitri threatened him with a spider and Ilya spilled everything in under a second.

Not that I cared, but I did tell Dimitri not to tell Rei. He was Marco’s best friend and it was his choice if he wanted to tell him. Dimitri agreed not to tell him because apparently that would make Rei sad and that was unacceptable.

Ilya appeared out of nowhere. He wrapped his hands over our shoulders.

“Helloooo, my favourite boys,” he said, his voice bright as he started yapping about something I was only half listening to.

Dimitri tolerated it for a bit before his patience ran out. He grabbed Ilya’s wrist and pulled his arm away from his shoulder. Ilya winced.

I turned my head and looked at him.

Dimitri hadn’t grabbed him hard. The kind of contact that shouldn’t have caused pain in any normal, healthy person.

Dimitri noticed too.

His hand was still on Ilya’s wrist, and he looked down at it, then up at Ilya’s face, his expression shifting from irritation to something more focused. “What was that?” he asked.

Ilya took a step back, his face arranged itself into an expression of studied confusion.

“What was what?”

Dimitri’s eyes narrowed. He reached out, grabbed Ilya’s arm again, and pulled it back to the front. Ilya resisted, which wasn’t something he did, because Ilya folded under pressure but this time he resisted, his muscles tensing, his body leaning backward, his free hand coming up to push at Dimitri’s grip.

Dimitri held firm and squeezed Ilya’s wrist.

Not hard, but Ilya’s face scrunched.

His eyes squeezed shut, his mouth pressing into a tight line, his whole expression contracting around pain he was trying very, very hard not to show.