Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
LYLA VOZNESENSKY
Month three
“Ma’am, please, calm down.”
“Stop telling me to fucking calm down! I told you, I want my beef jerky!”
I eyed the customer, mentally telling myself to take three deep breaths. “I understand that. But you have to buy one first. It’s buy one, get one free.”
“And I told you, I don’t want two. I only want the free one!”
The overwhelming urge to roll my eyes hit me, and I only just managed to beat it back. My gaze swung to the teenage manager on shift with me. She wasn’t watching, her eyes plastered to the phone in her hand, smacking her lips loudly as she chewed the gum in her mouth.
I’d been working in this corner convenience store for a few weeks, and it sucked. It was my futile attempt to try and forget what happened. To try and distract myself from the horrible, all-consuming guilt that lived permanently in my brain.
It was a small place. For hours, I stood behind the counter, surrounded on all sides by plexiglass with barely enough room to move, let alone fucking breathe. But that wasn’t the worst part.
Serving customers was the worst part.
Customer service was not my forte, and whoever came up with the phrase, the customer is always right was a fucking bone head. Newsflash, the customer was not always right. In fact, they were rarely fucking right.
Why people thought they knew more about a business than an attendant who actually worked there was beyond me. It drove me literally insane. Not to mention how rude people were to service attendants. Like a simple please and thank you were too fucking hard to utter.
“I understand that, ma’am,” I blew out behind clenched teeth. “But as I said, the promotion is buy one get one free, which means in order to receive the free one, you must first purchase one.”
Was I speaking another language? How fucking hard was that to understand?
“I don’t care what the promotion is!” the woman yelled, sweeping her hand across the counter and throwing a whole bunch of merchandise to the floor. “I want my free beef jerky, and you better give it to me! The customer is always right!”
Andddd there it was.
The fabric of my uniform irritated my skin. Add that to the sound of the desk fan blowing beside me, the hum of the refrigerators, the smack-smack of Becka’s lips as she chewed her gum, and the customer’s irritating, shrill voice, and it all pushed me into a full-blown sensory overload.
I fucking snapped.
I pushed my face right up against the plexiglass, pointing a finger at her. “Listen here, you stupid, shrill little bitch. I’m a heartbeat away from jumping over this counter, smashing your face into the ground, cutting off all your hair, and slitting your goddamn throat, you hear me?”
The woman blinked in shock. “You-you can’t speak to me like that,” she said, flabbergasted.
“I can talk to you however the fuck I want to talk to you. If you want that jerky, show me the fucking money. Otherwise, get the fuck out of here before I kill you and sell your organs on the black market.”
She fled so quickly she left her phone behind. I wasn’t sure if it was my words or my tone. Perhaps both. Maybe she finally realized I was dead fucking serious.
I didn’t know and I didn’t fucking care.
Good-fucking-riddance.
I killed my brother.
I stumbled back, my hand flying to my chest, pain slicing my heart in two.
No. No. Go away. Get the fuck out of my head. Leave me alone.
For nearly three months, I’d been bedridden. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Unable to cope with the haunting fact that I had killed my own brother, his last words playing like a broken record, over and over again in my head. Never stopping. Never easing. Never giving me a moment of relief.
I will never forgive you.
I will never forgive you.
I will never forgive you.
I killed the one person in the world who loved me. Not only that, but I killed him for someone who left me. Abandoned me. That hurt almost as much.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get out. I had to get away from the voices—not only Lev’s, but my own. The constant reminder of what I’d done. In an attempt to forget, I had gotten myself a job. A job that was meant to distract me. Keep my thoughts from slipping. But it wasn’t working.
Nothing was working.
I couldn’t get the voices to stop. The guilt to ease. I just wanted the guilt to go away.
A shadow fell over the counter. “Pack of Marlboro Lights, please,” a light, familiar, feminine voice said.
I looked up and stiffened.
Fuck.
Illayana De Luca stood in front of me, looking as beautiful and badass as ever in a red pencil skirt, black blouse, black trench coat, and black stiletto Louboutin heels.
Her hair was down and straight. Makeup flawless and perfect.
A gold Cartier watch dangled from her wrist. A huge diamond ring sat snugly on her third left finger.
Her earrings were gold, and probably worth more than anything I owned.
Illayana looked like she’d just walked off a model fashion shoot.
We stared at each other, absolute silence reigning between us. I didn’t know what to do. What to say. Seeing her brought forth an avalanche of thoughts and emotions I’d been trying my hardest to bury for months.
Long dark hair. Crystal blue eyes. Mischievous smirk. Lukyan’s face flashed in my mind before I could stop it, along with pain and anguish.
I killed my brother for a man who left me.
I shook my head, mentally demanding the voice to leave me alone again. I cleared my throat, turned around to retrieve the packet of cigarettes, and faced her again. “What are you doing here?”
“Hello to you too. It’s nice to officially meet you.”
“Is it?” I highly doubted that. My gaze swept the counter, looking for a weapon. Something sharp and pointy I could use to defend myself. Scissors. A ruler. Even a goddamn pen would do—
“There’s no need for that. I’m not here to hurt you.”
“You’re not?” I frowned. “You’re not here to kill me for what happened to your father?”
“Nope.” She pulled some cash from her pocket and held it out to me. “I’m here to talk.”
Talk? Just…talk? That surprised me. Part of the reason I was running was because I was sure the Bratva were hell-bent on revenge for what had happened to Papa D.
I scanned the cigarettes through the till. “Talk about what?”
“You and my brother.”
Another bout of pain hit me. I killed my brother for a man who left me.
“There is no ‘me and your brother’.” As much as I wished there was.
I took the cash from her and opened the register.
I quickly put the money away in its designated slots, got out her change, and handed it over to her, along with the smokes.
“Have a nice day,” I said, plastering a big, fake smile on my face, trying as hard as I could to just move her along.
My identity was burned. I would have to run again. Granted, I wasn’t that upset about it. This life sucked. Mainly the job. For the next one, I would be avoiding any customer service-related jobs like the plague.
She chuckled, not moving a muscle. Humor danced in her eyes. “You got a break coming up?”
“Negatory. I’m really quite busy.” How the fuck did she find me, anyway? Does that mean Lukyan is looking for me too?
Don’t be ridiculous, that voice in my head said. He left you, remember? He doesn’t care about you. It was all a game to him. Lukyan played you, and the first chance he got, he escaped, just like Autumn said he would.
I didn’t want to listen to the voice, but it had a point. I thought we were soulmates, but after what had happened, I was questioning everything. Questioning every interaction we had. Every word he said.
“Yes,” Illayana dragged out, glancing around the empty store. “You sure look it.”
“I am!” I didn’t know why I was getting defensive. I had nothing to be defensive about.
Her face suddenly turned serious, any trace of humor disappearing in an instant. “Ten minutes. That’s all I ask. Ten minutes.”
“I don’t have ten minutes.”
“Sure you do.”
“No. I don’t.” I took a deep breath to calm myself.
The last thing I wanted to do was get in a fistfight with her.
“Look, I don’t want to be rude, but you and I have nothing to talk about,” I said sternly.
“So you might as well go.” I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t have this conversation. If I did, I wouldn’t make it. I wouldn’t survive.
“I respectfully disagree. We have everything to talk about. My brother is hurting, and you’re the only one who can fix it. I’m not leaving until we have a discussion, even if I have to wait here all night.”
“What?” I breathed out in surprise. “Lukyan is hurting?”
“Of course he is. He’s been running himself ragged looking for you these last few months.”
I bit my lip, looking away. Hearing he’d been searching for me made my heart flutter. Did our time together have a bigger impact on him than I thought? Does he actually…love me?
“I saw that,” Illayana said, a hint of giddiness in her voice. “I saw that spark in your eyes. That hope. Come onnnn. You know you want to talk to me. Everybody does. I’m a delight to talk to.”
Familiarity sparked. Behind that serious exterior, I could see a playfulness that mirrored Lukyan’s—a similarity between the two siblings that could not be missed or ignored.
My soul had been deprived of Lukyan’s light for ninety-three days, seventeen hours, twenty-seven minutes, and forty-one seconds, and even though it was his sister standing in front of me, not him, a tiny bit of the pain that had been battering my heart and soul since our separation eased.
I missed him.
God, fuck, I missed him.
I missed him more than I could ever put into words, and yet, I couldn’t stop running from him. Couldn’t stop hiding. Couldn’t face what I’d done.
Denial was a powerful emotion, and right then, it was my best fucking friend.
But the prospect of finding out if he was truly missing me was too good to pass up. I looked back to Illayana and sighed. “Ten minutes.”