30. Titus #2
She wipes at her face with the back of her hand and I notice her eyes are rimmed with red.
“All of this,” she says, her voice choking on sobs.
“Everything that happened. It was his fault? If he hadn’t gone after Angela, none of this…
” She covers her mouth, breaking down. I reach for her and she pushes me away.
“Sofia, what else could I do? You know how this goes. She was the mother of my son. No matter what, I was owed my revenge.”
“And I was owed mine,” she says. “But… but I never took it. I…” She sits up straight and says, “I need some time with this, Titus. Please.”
I nod. I’ll give her all the time she needs.
Sofia’s kept her distance from me for about a week. I’ve noticed that she’s been staying in her room and only eating what the staff brings to her. She hasn’t come down to dinner with me since that day at the cemetery and we’ve barely spoken to one another.
I don’t know what I was expecting by telling her the truth about her father. A child’s loyalty is always going to be with their parent first. And after everything she’s lost…
Her entire life changed because of the choices that he made and my response to them.
No amount of anything that I do will change that fact.
I’ve been lying awake at night, wondering when she’s going to come to me and ask me to let her go.
Now that the dissension has been eliminated within the Bratva, I could do just that. If she wanted to leave me…
I do not want her to leave. The idea of it makes me ill.
It’s getting late. I’ve been sitting out in the garden, watching the sunset, and wondering what I’m going to do when she finally does come to me to tell me that she’s leaving. If I lose Sofia, I think that will be it for me. I’ll close up my heart for good.
The smell of roses is heavy all of a sudden… and I hear footfalls walking on the path. I turn to see Sofia walking up, her hands behind her back like she’s just going on a leisurely stroll. She stops when she’s about a foot away and says, “Can I sit with you?”
I slide over on the bench and she sits down next to me.
“You’ve been out here a while,” she says. “Are… you okay?”
“I’m just thinking,” I say to her.
She nods. “There’s a lot of that going around.”
And she goes quiet. We sit and watch the skyline as it changes from blue blending into orange and red.
“This whole vengeance thing,” she says, “it’s really kind of messed things up for us, hasn’t it?”
I don’t respond. This is it. This is where she tells me she wants to leave.
“You don’t have to say anything. Just let me talk for a while. I’ve been thinking about everything. About my father uprooting your life and mine, really. About how things are done in the Bratva. About how we were both owed a debt and we made different choices.”
“Sofia—”
“Titus, I need to get this out, okay? Just listen.”
She looks like she might be near tears again. I close my mouth and listen.
“Telling me the truth about my father was the right call,” she says.
“I needed to know. I also understand why you decided to tell me in the first place. You had to know that once I understood everything that I… I probably was going to want to leave. This whole thing was your way of telling me that I’m free to go if I want to. ”
I stare at her in disbelief. She snickers and shakes her head.
“I can’t believe the big, bad Titus Malkin couldn’t just tell me to get out properly. You had to try to hurt me to get me to go. And you know something? You were right. After all, I’m just a spoil of war. This wasn’t ever supposed to be anything except for… well, what it was.”
She swallows hard, her eyes tearing up. She looks away and her long hair falls into her face, hiding it from me.
“So, I’m going to just rip the Band-Aid off,” she says. “I came down here to tell you that I’m leaving. My family is dead. Your Bratva is whole. There’s no reason for me to be here. I just need you to tell me that I’m free.”
She wants to leave. She wants to leave because she thinks I want her to go. I could laugh if this weren’t so fucking tragic.
She looks at me and her eyes are as blue as the ocean. Tears hang in them, threatening to fall and break both our hearts. “Tell me I’m free, Titus. Please.”
Perhaps that’s the right thing to do. Perhaps watching her walk away is the best thing for her. Strange how I find myself back at the same place I was six years ago with another woman.
I take her hands in mine. “If you want to leave,” I tell her, “I’m not going to stop you. But I’d rather you considered staying.”
“Why? I don’t understand.”
“Because I don’t want you to go.”
Her eyebrows tilt up. “You… don’t?”
“No, Sofia. I made this mistake once before and I have regretted it every day since. And now, somehow, I’ve been given another chance. I will not make the same mistake again.”
Tears roll down her face and the corners of her lips quiver. “Titus—”
“Marry me, Sofia. Your place in this world is at my side. I don’t want it any other way. Say you’ll be my queen.”
She squeezes my hands and a smile slowly creeps in through her tears. “Dammit, Titus,” she says. “You would fuck up a perfectly good breakup.”
“Is that a yes?”
She leans into me and whispers, “Yes.” Then she kisses me. Her lips are sweet and warm as they pull me out of my sorrow.
Some men never know the kind of love that I’ve seen. I got to have it twice and this time, I’m doing things the right way.
“I’ll never let you go,” I whisper to her as she runs her fingers through my hair. “I love you, Sofia.”
She smiles against my lips. “I love you, Titus.”