16. Yarik
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
YARIK
K irill. Kirill.
“ Kirill —” I gasped, jerking upright.
“Easy now.” Someone touched my upper arm, using just enough pressure to hold me in place where I was sprawled out, face down on my own bed. I only knew it was mine because I could smell the lingering trace of my body wash on the sheets. But the hand on my arm . . . I didn’t recognize the voice or the touch. Was she a doctor? The devil come to finish me off? Hard to tell when I felt like death warmed over. When I didn’t respond, she awkwardly added, “You’ll only hurt yourself.”
“’m fine.” I wasn’t. Not even a little bit. I drew my free arm under my chest, ready to push up onto my elbow, but the hand on my bicep didn’t budge. Irritation gritted my teeth as I tried to shake her off. “Let me go.”
“Please, Mr. Volkov. Just wait before you?—”
Couldn’t wait.
Had to find Kirill.
A low groan spilled out of me as I scraped together the last of my strength and rolled from the bed .
Oh. Oh, bloody fucking hell .
Red-hot pain flashed through each of my nerve endings, lighting me up like a fireworks display. Gasping, I shot out a desperate hand to cling to the nearest bedpost. Swear to God, it didn’t even help. The room was spinning . Squeezing my eyes shut, I slumped against the post and willed myself not to throw up all over my shoes.
Hoarsely, I croaked, “Where is he?”
“Who, Mr. Volkov? Your father?”
Fuck no.
Not him.
“Kirill,” I rasped as a tremor wracked my body. “Where is he?”
“Oh. Well. I haven’t seen him, but I’m sure he’s around here somewhere. It’s almost four in the morning.”
So, he’d fled like a coward.
Eight years of friendship pissed down the drain after an hour-long descent into Hell. I’d expected more, honestly. Thought I’d at least wake up to find him by my bedside, utterly distraught over what he’d done to me in Father’s study. But I was alone in this room, in this bed—the kind of alone that sank into your bones and rattled your soul.
He’d left me to fucking rot .
I was in so much pain, bile rose like a tidal wave every time I so much as inhaled. And, sure, the constant stream of nausea should have been reason number one to do what the doctor said and take it easy. Should have, maybe, but beneath endless layers of agony, a single flame of fury danced atop a bed of dry kindling, threatening to destroy everything in its path. Did he think that I wouldn’t go after him? That he’d be free of me so long as he kept out of sight?
He’d hurt me.
Betrayed me .
Looked me right in the fucking eye and acted like what I wanted meant nothing. Acted like I meant nothing. He’d treated me that way, all right. Tied me up, ignored my pleas, and made my bloody father proud.
“Breathe, Mr. Volkov. You’re hyperventilating?—”
Soft little Yaroslav. So stupid, so dumb.
So broken .
“I really think you ought to . . .”
Tuning her out, I took a staggering step toward the door. I had to go. Had to find Kirill, where I’d either fall to my knees before him, a pathetic wreck of a human who would forgive anything if he just told me why , or I’d plant my fist in his stupid, beautiful face and ask questions later.
The doc trailed after me, wringing her hands as if this was her first night on the job and she had no idea what to do with the riot of emotion pouring from me in waves. Part of me didn’t even blame her for keeping her distance. For all I’d been through, I’d never felt this unhinged. I was trembling, less than five seconds away from falling on my arse, but I kept going, even when she weakly protested, “I really do think that you should?—”
I didn’t give two fucks what she thought.
In a blur of rage and hurt, I stumbled down the hall in search of Kirill, growing more and more incensed the longer I went without finding him. He wasn’t in his room. Wasn’t in the lounge, either. Against all semblance of self-preservation, I found myself pushing the study door open to peer inside its shadowy depths; I only lasted a handful of seconds before the memory of standing nose to the wall, vulnerable and blindsided, threatened to tear me apart.
“Fucking now, Yaroslav .”
I wanted to scream .
Wanted to raze the world to the ground and watch it all go up in flames.
I’d spent years doing everything I could to hide the extent of my punishments from Kirill. Yeah, he’d suspected something was going on, especially when I hurt so bad, I could barely leave my bed, but still, he hadn’t known —not about the humiliation of being told I was worthless, right before I was shown, time and time again, how truly worthless I really was; not about the mangled scars that littered my back either.
And now . . .
“ Don’t move.”
Now he’s seen me at my worst—taken advantage of me at my worst—and rather than own up to it, he’d turned his back on me instead.
“ Face the wall .”
A brisk wind rustled through my hair as I stepped out under a starry night sky. It was only when goose bumps pebbled my chest that I gained enough self-awareness to look down and realize that I wasn’t wearing a shirt. Fuck him for that, too. For crawling so deep beneath my skin that even now, when I was absolutely obliterated from the betrayal he’d leveled at my feet, he could still occupy my thoughts so completely that the world around him faded to pitch-black.
Maybe it was intuition that guided me or some higher being, or the stars themselves, but my feet drew me past the gnarled oak tree with its weeping branches and then past the thick reeds that no one ever bothered to trim back. They stroked my wounded skin like a lover’s caress, even as I used my forearms to beat them out of the way, until I was stepping out into the small clearing where I’d once found an almost dead boy .
My best friend.
The other half of my wretched soul.
I shouted his name, still so angry that I could choke on it. Spun around where I stood, scouring the darkness for a glimpse of?—
There.
On his knees, right near the water’s edge.
“Did you really think that I wouldn’t come for you?” I stalked toward him with sure footsteps even as my flesh wept fresh agony. “That I wouldn’t tear the Earth apart with my own two fucking hands to find you?”
He didn’t say anything.
An unforgiving gust of wind tugged at his black hair, sweeping the silky strands off the back of his neck. My gaze lowered. He was still decked out in the same clothes he’d worn to my birthday dinner—black woolen trousers paired with a long-sleeved shirt I’d gotten him last year. The fact that his belt was missing had me seeing red.
“What, nothing to say?”
He didn’t look back at me. Didn’t even acknowledge me. It was a dagger to an already bleeding heart, and I wasn’t proud of it, the way I threw all caution to the wind and committed my gravest sin. I reached out and touched him, my hand on his shoulder, fingers splayed wide over hard tendons of muscle before I forced him to turn toward me while he was still on his knees.
Something clattered to the pavement.
A gun.
My blood went ice cold.
So slowly that I was sure he’d take the opportunity to run, I dragged my gaze up the length of his torso. Closer now, I could see all the little details that I’d missed before—the perfectly tailored shirt I’d bought for him was plastered to his skin, emphasizing the width of his shoulders and the muscular planes of his chest. The top buttons were askew, the third one gone, leaving me to imagine him tearing frantically at the material, eager to draw air into his heaving lungs as he hauled his body out of the river.
Because that’s what he’d done, hadn’t he?
He was soaked. Water droplets still clung to the bare column of his throat, left his full lips shiny and wet, desperate for the press of a lover’s kiss. Down at my sides, my fingers curled into tight, aching fists, even as I wrenched my gaze away from my best mate’s mouth to finally look him dead in the eye.
“What, couldn’t bear to live with the crushing guilt?” I didn’t recognize the sound of my voice. It was dark, thick, as if I was the one drowning. Then again, maybe I was. Maybe I’d yet to wake up from the nightmare that was Kirill Volkov taking a leather belt to my fucking back while I twisted and turned in a last-ditch effort to escape the inescapable. I narrowed my eyes on his familiar face, clocking the way he flinched at my question, and then I lowered my voice even more. “Or maybe, Kiryusha . . . you were just waiting for me .”
“Please,” he whispered.
He leaned forward just enough to push the gun toward me, his meaning clear. And while that single flame of fury still danced wild and reckless in my soul, I was mesmerized by the sight of him on his knees, his lashes wet with tears as he blinked up at me in a wordless appeal for me to end him.
He was beautiful.
I’d always thought so, but like this . . . with his emotional shields in ruin around him, it was as if I’d finally been granted access to step into the walled fortress of his heart. And step in, I did. Eagerly. Greedily. Like a man in the desert after finally stumbling upon an oasis, knees hitting hot sand, hands cupping fresh water, throat working with each desperate swallow, drinking more and more until he was damn near sick with it.
That was me.
Sick with want for my best friend.
Sick with need .
“Yarik.” My name was a plea, rough with regret. “ Please .”
And I picked it up, the gun. Lowered to my haunches right there by the river, with the moonlight exposing all of Kirill’s sorrow and all of his shame. I let the weight of the weapon ground me to this moment, to the anger I felt deep inside, the way it flashed hot and cold, all at once, until I was lightheaded from the rush.
I stood.
Lifted my arm.
Pressed the gun to his damp temple, and rasped, “You’re a hypocrite, Kirill Volkov. Refusing to let me die and then demanding I put you out of your own bloody misery.”
“I know,” he rasped back. His cheeks were flushed, his long, elegant fingers biting into the meat of his thighs. He looked like a man in prayer, but instead of bowing his head to God, he kept those somber midnight eyes pinned on me. I searched his features, looking for some hidden motive that I’d somehow missed in all the years I’d known him, but his gaze was wide open and trusting, like now that he’d placed his fate into my hands, he could finally . . . breathe.
I’d stopped breathing in that study.
Even now, I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.
“Say it.”
“Yarik—”
“I want you to say it,” I growled. “Tell me why you did it. Tell me why you’d let him—why you’d do that when I asked—when I fucking begged y-you. I begged, Kirill.” Tears washed to the surface, blurring his moonlit face as I choked back a ragged cry. “I begged, and you didn’t stop him. Y-you didn’t stop. How could you? H-how could you fucking do that to me?—”
“Because I’m selfish! ” he roared. He didn’t stand up or push the gun away, but I staggered back, anyway, so startled by the raw emotion bleeding from his expression that I was momentarily struck speechless. “Because I’d drag you down to Hell with me before I ever let you go.”
Then he stood.
Unless I was angling for a swim, there was nowhere to escape.
He came for me, fury and regret and something utterly untamed flitting through his gaze just before he snagged me by the wrist, forcing me to put the gun back to his temple. I stared down at him, breathing hard and fast, as he touched his finger to mine, right there where it rested safely beside the trigger.
We’d never been this close.
Never breathed the same air the way we were now, so that if I dared, I could lean down just a little and there’d be no distance between us at all. There’d be him, and there’d be me, and we’d be together , in a way we’d never been before.
Yarik and Kirill.
Kirill and Yarik.
I was lost. Lost to the new, unfamiliar sensation of him touching me. Lost to the heat coursing recklessly through my veins, making the front of my trousers embarrassingly tight as I hardened in my briefs. I was still angry, but worse than that, worse than anything , was the fact that I was drowning in hope— kiss me, kiss me, kiss me .
“Do it,” he demanded in a soft, dangerous murmur. “Kill me, Yarik.”
I searched his gaze.
Still breathless.
Still silently begging, kiss me—kiss me—kiss me ? —
“Or what?” I shot back raggedly. “I have to stay with you in Hell?”
His chin tipped up. “Yes.”
“Because that’s where you belong?”
“I hurt you.”
“You did.”
“I ruined us.”
I licked my lips, then confessed, “We were already ruined, Kiryusha.”
“No, we’re?—”
“Two ruined souls.” I pulled the gun back, tugging it out of his grasp, in order to press the carbon-steel mouth to the underside of my chin. “Some days I think we might even be two broken halves of the same whole, where darkness meets shadow. You can’t let me go, and I . . . I would rather take my last breath than live even a second without you in it.”
“Even in Hell?”
“Yes,” I admitted roughly, “even in Hell.”
We’d reached a stalemate. He wouldn’t kill me, and I wouldn’t kill him. Behind me, the rush of the Thames was a stark reminder that we’d spent the last eight years shouldering the gravity of life side by side. Where I fell, he rose, and when he shattered—infrequent as it was—I stayed glued to his side, unwavering in my devotion to him.
We were darkness .
We were shadow.
And there was no denying it, not anymore—I loved Kirill Volkov. Not the way you loved a best mate or a brother. I loved him the way you did a soulmate. With rings and vows and the promise of happily-ever-after. I felt myself straining toward him, aching for a taste. Just one, if that’s all I’d ever get. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—take anything he didn’t readily offer me, but that didn’t stop my thoughts from racing from one fantasy to the next.
I wanted his lips on mine, his hands gripping my arse, holding me flush against him. I wanted nights where we watched the stars, our fingers tangled between us, and nights when we fucked until we were sweaty and raw and dizzy from the high of coming so hard, we blacked out.
I wanted everything .
With him.
The boy I’d found on this riverbank years and years ago, never knowing how that one act of mercy would lead us to this moment, with me holding a gun to the soft, sensitive place beneath my chin, one trigger-pull away from ending it all.
I want you , I almost whispered.
Please tell me you want me, too .
Before I could scrounge up the nerve, he muttered, “I’ll never forgive myself,” and it was that quick, how fast reality crashed back down on me. Because as Kirill made me hand over the gun, and I watched him tuck it into his waistband, it became glaringly obvious that while I’d been hoping we might lead to more, he was hoping that we would never end.
“You’re my best mate,” he said to me quietly, standing so close that I could feel his warm breath on my skin. But where anticipation had wound tight across my muscles before, now I was achingly aware of hope—stupid, fucking hope—withering to ash within me. “My only family,” he added, briefly meeting my gaze before he looked away as if this confession, more than any other, was too much for him. “I’ll spend the rest of my life earning your trust back, Yarik, I swear. I’m sorry. I’m so . . . I’m just so fucking sorry .”
My heart was cold.
My back was aching.
I was sorry, too. Sorry that for one breathless second, I thought that I could really have it all. Him and me together, with rings and vows and the promise of happily-ever-after. Forever.
There was no greater fool alive than me.