Page 148 of Sweet Ruin

For a while, he says nothing. He just sits beside me on the stripped bedroom floor, one knee bent, his shoulder close enough that heat seeps through my sweater.

Kane looks at the doorway Vivian disappeared through. “‘There’s just more of you every year,’” he whispers. Then he shakes his head. “I want you to know that’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

I flinch.

His head turns. “That was false when Connor typed it. It was false when she said it. It’s false now.”

“You don’t have to⁠—”

“I know.” His gaze moves over my face. “I’m not comforting you. I’m correcting the record.”

Right. Naturally. Comfort would be dangerously tender.

Correcting the record sounds like something he can do while still wearing a shoulder holster.

“It still hurt,” I admit.

“That’s what she wanted.”

I drag my sleeve across my damp cheek. “You know, for someone who hates explaining things, you have a lot of aggressively stated insights.”

His mouth quirks. “You prefer uncertainty?”

“No. I prefer being right.”

“Then you must be having a difficult life.”

A laugh escapes me. Kane glances at my mouth, and the air changes. Not completely. Grief still sits inside my ribs like badly poured concrete. But it’s less achy than it was before.

I look around the bare room. The fresh paint has reached that tacky stage where it smells less like chemicals and more like possibility. Downstairs, someone closes a toolbox. The house settles around us, unfamiliar in its newness.

“I’m sleeping here tonight,” I decide. “In my house.”

I wait for him to announce security arrangements or reveal that he’s installing himself in the Eames chair.

He doesn’t. He rises, then offers me his hand.

I take it.

We go downstairs, side by side. I watch him shrug on his coat and step toward the door.

“The next holiday is January seventh,” he says.

I turn. “What holiday is January seventh?”

“Russian Orthodox Christmas.” He cracks his neck to one side. “I’ll send Stepan to pick you up.”

“When? Where are we going? What am I supposed to⁠—”

“Goodnight, Lilah. Get some sleep. You deserve it.”

He steps outside, closes the door, and leaves before I manage a single useful question.

27

KANE

The door closes behind me. I stand on Lilah’s front step like an idiot.