Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
KIRILL
By the time we get to bed, she’s quiet. I notice it the moment she steps into the room. A pale pink slip drapes over her, barely hiding the gorgeous curves beneath it, and I forget what I was thinking about entirely.
She gives me a shy smile before pulling back the covers and sliding in beside me almost cautiously, leaving a small space between us.
I roll onto my side and reach for her, guiding her face toward mine. “Are you okay? Are you nervous to be here with me?”
Her eyes flicker, and she gives a small nod. “A little bit.”
I tug her closer, my arm draping around her waist and drawing her against my chest.
“Don’t be.” I drop a kiss to her forehead. “I don’t expect anything.”
She lets out a soft little groan as she burrows into me, making my cock stir at the sound. As much as I want her, I don’t want her thinking this is why I moved her to my bedroom.
When I switch off the bedside lamp, she shifts, and her thigh rubs against my erection. I stifle a growl. This is going to be a very long night.
Minutes later, I’m lying awake staring into the dark while her body relaxes against mine. Her hand rests lightly over my chest, her breathing slowly evening out as she settles deeper into my arms.
This woman already feels like mine, even when I know I don’t deserve her. Having her here almost feels like an escape from the darkness. But I know better.
When I finally close my eyes, I sense it coming again. That familiar pull, like something dragging me down where I don’t want to go. It doesn’t matter that she’s here, warm in my arms. The darkness still finds me.
One second, I’m in the bed with her. The next, I’m back there. Trapped in that endless black space with no walls, no ceiling, no door to claw my way through.
The darkness is everywhere, my bare footsteps pounding as I try to find a way to escape it.
At first, I hear nothing but myself…
Until the sound comes like always, closing in around my throat. A baby cries somewhere in the distance, the panicked sound growing closer with every passing second. My body reacts before my mind can form a single thought.
I run, knowing I need to get to him before…before it’s too late.
But it’s always too late.
My hands claw through empty air, blind in the dark, searching for a wall, a door, any edge to this place. But there’s nothing. Only the baby’s desperate cries growing sharper while time slips away from him.
“I’m here,” I call, but my words vanish, swallowed by the darkness the second they leave my mouth.
The crying spikes, as if he heard me, begging me to hurry. Terror floods through me. I can hear him so clearly now and still I can’t find him, can’t touch him, can’t even tell which direction to run.
I run harder. The air is freezing and thick at the same time while my lungs burn, sweat coating my brow. Then, out of nowhere, the dark splits and I stumble forward, the night air so cold it bites, my feet hitting grass instead of emptiness.
The crying only grows closer. So close it hurts.
When I glance around, I realize I’ve been here. I know this yard. I know that faint porch light on the right, recognize the swing set off to the side that creaks like it remembers me too.
And I recognize his laugh before I can even make him out.
My father stands there waiting for me, a pistol hanging loose in his hand. In his other arm, he holds a baby bundled tight, tiny and red-faced, fists opening and closing as the child screams.
Something vicious twists through my chest. In an instant, I’m no longer a man, but a boy again. Thirteen.
I stand there looking at myself, at the baby, at the gun in my father’s hand, knowing that if I can just take it from him, I can stop this. I can kill him before he does what I already know he’s about to do.
I step forward. The boy does too. I jerk back, and he jerks back with me, mirroring every move like we’re tied together—which, of course, we are.
We’re the same person. I know that. But some stupid part of me still hopes that maybe this time will be different. That this time I can change something.
“Please,” I—we—say. “Papa, please. Don’t hurt him.”
The words rip out of me, but my father’s mouth curves like he’s entertained.
“What did I tell you about loving something?” He tsks with disapproval. “It makes you weak, synok. Have I taught you nothing?”
The baby cries louder, and I manage to thread closer, needing to do something.
“Give him away.” My hands shake. “Leave him anywhere. I don’t care. Just don’t…”
My father peers down at the child as if he’s considering it, then glares back at me with something like satisfaction. Because he has what he wants: proof that I care.
“Everything can be destroyed, or it will destroy you.” He sighs like he’s growing bored. “But I will not be the one to kill it.” He steps forward and presses the gun into my hand, forcing my fingers around it. “You will.”
The cold metal bites into my palm, and the younger me flinches. I can sense his fear, feel the metal in my own hand.
“No…” I shake my head, pushing it away. “I can’t.”
“Of course you will. You are a Marinov, or have you forgotten?”
My body locks up around the gun like it’s welded there, like the fear has spun my muscles to iron.
“Please, no, Papa,” I whisper, shaking my head and shoving the gun back to him. “I will do anything else. Just not this.”
“You will.”
“I won’t,” I force out, rougher now. “I will not hurt him. You can’t do this. This is evil, even for you.”
The punishment comes instantly. The back of the gun slams into my skull so hard my knees buckle, pain exploding behind my eyes.
“You will never speak to me like that!” my father says. “You do it again, and I will kill you.”
He lowers the baby to the grass in front of me, placing him down with terrifying care. He wriggles helplessly in the blanket, crying without pause, face turned toward me like he knows I’m supposed to be the one to save him.
My throat burns. “I won’t do it.”
I put myself between them, but my father is already lifting the weapon and pointing it at the baby. The sniveling grows frantic, the baby’s tiny chest hitching like it’s running out of air.
“You are a true disappointment,” my father says.
“No, no! Please.” My hands outstretch, but my father only pushes me out of the way.
The gunshot splits the night, so loud it cracks through me.
And the worst part isn’t the sound. It’s what follows: the sudden brutal silence where the crying used to be.
SLOANE
I wake to the sound of him groaning beside me, his body jerking hard like he’s trapped in a nightmare he can’t fight his way out of.
Carefully, I ease myself from his arms and push onto one elbow. Then I sit all the way up and reach for him, shaking him lightly at first, hoping I can pull him out of whatever he’s seeing before it drags him any deeper.
He mutters something in Russian, the words tangled and broken, and I can’t understand any of it. All I can sense is the hard flex of his bicep beneath my hand and the tension running through his body.
I flip on the bedside lamp, praying the low glow will be enough to pull him back.
“Net…ostav…” he mumbles, and the sight of him like this shatters me.
“Kirill, wake up.”
I shake him again, firmer this time, my fingers pressing into his shoulder as his body goes taut beneath my hand. His breathing turns ragged, almost frantic, his features twisting.
“Kirill,” I whisper, leaning closer as my hand slides up to cup his cheek. “You’re safe. Wake up.”
He jolts so violently, it knocks the air right out of me. One second, he’s still deep in it, and the next, he’s surging upright, his arm flying up so fast it nearly hits me. His chest heaves and his eyes dart wildly around the room, unfocused, still somewhere far darker than this bed.
Then he sees me. Recognition hits him all at once. He goes still so fast, it’s almost jarring.
“Sloane—” His voice comes out rough and ragged, panic threaded through it.
His hand hovers in the space between us where it nearly struck me, and I witness the realization spread across his face, the understanding of how close he came to hurting me, even by accident.
“Are you okay?” Reaching for me, his hands curl around my arms like he needs to be sure I’m not hurt. “Blyat. I’m sorry.”
“I’m fine, I swear.” I move toward him so he realizes I’m not afraid. “I was more worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
He squeezes his eyes shut and drags a hand down his face before dropping back onto the mattress, one arm thrown over his eyes like he’s trying to shut out whatever is still waiting for him behind them.
The lamp casts a soft glow across his torso, and even in the low light, I find the tension still locked into him—the way his jaw is clenched, the way his breathing hasn’t fully evened out.
I hesitate before sliding over to him. My fingers move to his chest, resting lightly over his heart, catching the rapid thud beneath my palm as I begin tracing slow, gentle circles against his skin.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
I expect him to shut me out completely. Instead, his free hand comes up and covers mine against his chest, holding it there. Then he lifts it and presses his mouth to my palm. A soft, almost reverent kiss that is more vulnerable than anything he could have said.
When he finally turns toward me, his gaze is hard, though there’s a hint of something broken in it. “I don’t think it’s anything you’re going to want to hear.”
I prop myself up on my elbow and brush my thumb along the line of his jaw.
“Try me,” I whisper. “I know I don’t have much to offer, but I can give you this: someone who listens. Someone who cares.” My throat tightens, but I push past it. “Because I do care, Kirill.”
A muscle jumps in his neck. “You have a lot to offer.”
His fingers slide into my hair, drawing me in until our foreheads touch. A moment later, his mouth finds mine, the kiss deep and unhurried, filled with something that is dangerously close to love.