32. Luca
Chapter 32
Luca
I tossed and turned in bed, praying for sleep to take me under.
It was the only time I could be with Irina and pretend that she hadn’t left me in agony.
Facing the empty space next to me, I gripped the bedsheet, my fingers trembling from the loss of her presence.
I didn’t know how long I stayed like that when my mind conjured up an image of her.
My heart shattered all over again because I knew it wasn’t real. She was a figment of my imagination.
“Is this how it’ll always be?” I asked, gazing at her. “I don’t know how to go on without you, Irina.”
She smiled sadly, her blue eyes sparking with a warmth that I couldn’t feel.
The moment I reached out to touch her, the image scattered away, leaving my hand suspended in the air where she had been .
I cursed myself as I ran a hand down my face and got up from the bed.
I walked downstairs and into the living room to find my best friend sitting on the couch, his eyes glued to the baby monitor in his hands.
He carried it with him everywhere.
“I told you to go home, Roman.” He looked up at me as I sat across from him. “I’m sure Aurora needs you more than I do right now.”
“She was the one who told me to stay.” His obsidian eyes darkened as if he had more to say.
“What?”
He pursed his lips, contemplating his words before he said, “She told me to tell you that Irina loves you and that she would never leave you behind on purpose, even if that was how it seemed.”
My gut twisted, bile rising in my throat. I didn’t deserve Aurora’s concern when I’d been selfish in not visiting her these past few weeks. She was family and I cared for her, but I couldn’t face her. My pain was raw, the torment of living every day without Irina visible to anyone who set their gaze on me.
I couldn’t hide it. I didn’t want to hide it. It was the last feeling she left me with and if this grief no longer existed then I’d have nothing.
We sat in silence for some time, the air thick with a strange tension.
My thoughts were chaotic, scattering in all directions until it became difficult to grasp and I found myself asking aloud, “What if we were wrong? ”
Roman sighed, glancing at me briefly. “We’ve been through this before, Luca.”
“Then why do I still feel her in here?” I pointed to my chest, a sharp pang striking through me.
I refused to accept that she was gone. Accepting it would mean that our story had ended before it even begun, and I’d never be done with Irina Morozov.
“Because you loved her.” He came to sit beside me, setting a hand on my shoulder. “But she’s gone, Luca.”
Shrugging him off, I stood and turned to face him. “I’m going to Russia.”
The crease between his brows deepened, something he did when he was stressed. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
“She’s not dead.” I had deluded myself the past few weeks when I should’ve gone after her. What if I’d been wrong?
No one had told me what I wanted to hear when I’d woken up in the hospital. Irina’s body wasn’t in the house when I’d been found, which led me to believe that her father took her.
“Irina was shot in front of your eyes,” Roman said, grabbing my head between his hands as if he was trying to snap me out of my thoughts. “You saw her die.”
“She’s not dead,” I repeated, anger spiking through me from his inability to understand what I was telling him. “I’m going to bring my girl home, and no one can stop me.”
Maybe my sanity had finally shattered into pieces, leaving my mind in ruins but I couldn’t repeat another day like this.
Ivan Morozov might’ve shot me and presumed I was dead, but I knew he’d never let Irina see the same fate .
If she was truly gone, the tender place between my rib cage where my heart beat only for her would’ve dissipated.
I wouldn’t let the memory of her dying be my last.