Chapter 27 #2
"Everyone in that building was a target because of her.
" He pushes the chair between us aside so we're standing toe to toe.
"She's the reason the Volyns knew where to put the charges.
She fed them everything. You invited the fucking devil right into heaven and gave him the key, Kazimir. What did you think would happen?"
"I know what she did."
"And it appears you never fucking learned your lesson." Stepan pushes his chest out, forcing me back a step.
We're close enough that I can feel his breath on my face when he opens his mouth to say something else.
But he doesn't get the words out. I hit him with a right cross so hard, his head snaps to the side, making spit fly from his mouth, and he comes back with a left that connects with my jaw, causing my teeth to cut the inside of my lip open.
It dazes me for a second, but I recover quickly.
Then I drive a short hook into his ribs and he folds over and grunts.
This jerk has really yanked my chain enough.
When he answers with an uppercut that clips my chin and slams my jaw shut, we crash into the desk together, knocking over Roman’s coffee.
It spills and the mug falls to the ground, shattering on the floor.
Roman jumps out of his seat, and Timur hooks his arm around Stepan's chest from behind and hauls back. Stepan throws an elbow into Timur's sternum, but Timur absorbs it and resets his grip lower, both arms locked around Stepan's midsection. He drags Stepan back off me just as Roman erupts.
"Enough!" he explodes, slamming a fist down on the desk right beside my head, and Stepan goes limp, then pushes away from Timur.
I'm sprawled on his desk, still seeing double from that uppercut, and Stepan fixes his shirt as I right myself, ready to pounce if he comes at me again.
"Stepan. Timur. Out—now." Roman isn’t messing around.
He points at the door as I straighten my collar, and Stepan stares at me for another beat before he turns and walks through the door.
Timur huffs and runs a hand over his face, staring at me.
They don't have to keep saying how disappointed they are in me.
I already know it. I'll never forget it.
I've been a failure, and I've fucked up things.
But this one takes the cake.
But if I can be a mess up like I used to be, and Roman can rescue me, then why not Zora too?
I turn slowly and face my uncle who picks up the phone from the floor where it fell in the scuffle and reads the messages.
Then he sets it down and comes around to the front of the desk and leans against it with his arms folded.
I drop back into the chair and run my tongue across my split lip, tasting blood.
"Is it yours?" he asks, and I hear the anger in his voice.
"Yes."
"You're sure?"
"I don’t know, Ro." I look up at him and let him see the war behind my eyes playing out.
"She was the best thing that ever happened to me.
I knew it was too good to be true, but then she was different.
She kept trying…" I see it now. The night the police were at that club, she delayed me.
If not, I'd have been arrested along with those fighters. This would've been over then.
"Trying?" he asks, narrowing his focus down to me.
"To save me, to tell me…" When we were having sex, and she was crying… And I knew something was wrong, but she wouldn’t tell me. She was trying to tell me. I know it. My gut says she really does love me, that she really is in trouble right now.
Roman closes his eyes and sighs heavily.
"If you go after her, this changes things," he says quietly.
I lift my eyes in confusion. I know he's the one who always rescues the broken, but Zora isn't broken.
She lied. And she hurt people and this family.
I don't understand him. "The leadership path you've been on isn't guaranteed anymore.
There are people in this family who won't forgive it and some of them will stop trusting you, and I won't be able to make them. "
"Ro," I mutter, standing next to him.
"Listen to me," he says, raising a hand to halt my questions. "Do you love her?" His eyes search my face, and I don’t even have to think about that.
"Yes."
"And do you believe she loves you back? Can she be reformed?
" His eyes bore into me, pulling the dross to the surface.
My whole life, I've wanted someone to believe in me, and if there were ever a time I needed it most, it's now.
Zora is the same. She just needs someone to believe in her. I know it.
"Yes," I say, but it's less confident than my first affirmation.
"And why do you want to save her?"
I think about it for a second, but the answer, in its rawest form, is simple.
"Ro, this woman could burn my whole world down and I'd still want her there when the smoke clears.
" I clench my jaw and touch the stinging spot on my lip.
My finger comes away with blood on it. "I don't know how to make that make sense to you or to Stepan or anyone else. If you give up when it’s hard… it's not love."
Roman's eyes lower, and I watch his mouth working as he chews on the thoughts. When his eyes meet mine again, I know I have his support.
"Get her." I'm moving before he even finishes, grabbing my phone, running for the door. "But know that we have a lot of work to do on this, Kaz."
I stop at the door and glance back. "Thank you."
"No, don't thank me. You have a debt to pay, and she'd better be worth this or it'll be both your heads. You know that, right?"
I don't care what it costs me at this point. Life has thrown so many curve balls, I'm willing to walk into the lion's den to pull her out if that's what I have to do. And if I die trying, at least I was true to my heart.
After all, isn't that what love would do?