Chapter 26 #2
Her scolding throws me off a bit, because that’s not like Annamaria at all. Usually, she has a wealth of patience to spare, enough to sell and give away if she had to.
Now that I think about it, Anna has been acting strange for the last few weeks. But right now, my priority is figuring out why Kirill left my party, so I shove that concern to the back of my mind, to revisit later.
And I will be revisiting it later.
“Go on.”
“Well, he watched the induction,” she begins chewing her bottom lip.
“And?”
“And I’m not sure if I should tell you this next part or not.”
“Anna!” Now it’s my turn to lose my patience with her.
She lets out a sigh and proceeds to tell me the rest. “You should have seen his face, Stella. He was so proud of you. I think he even cried a little. I know we’re not supposed to talk about it.
That we should respect your need for privacy, but Stella,” she says, her blue eyes sparkling, “He loves you. The man I saw today, watching you being inducted, loves you with every fiber of his being.”
My heart swells at her words… but then doubt starts to creep in.
If he loved me that much, then why leave?
When Anna realizes I’m not going to add anything to her observation, she continues on. “But then, right at the end, something changed in him,” she continues. “It was like a dark cloud came over his face, and he just… left.”
“And he didn’t say anything to you?”
She shakes her head.
“Not one word?”
“Not one, Stella. I would tell you if he had.”
That… that… that asshole!
“Where are you going?!” Annamaria whisper-yells when I start storming out of the room, every member of my family now staring at me.
“I’m going to find Kirill-fucking-Petrov and give him a piece of my mind! That’s where I’m going! And I dare anyone to stop me!”
I snatch my coat off the hook and charge out the door before anyone even has the chance to try.
It takes me four hours to find out where the cocky bastard could be hiding.
He wasn’t at his club.
He wasn’t at the casino.
He wasn’t at the lake house or even by the lake where we first danced together.
I finally had to call Frankie and beg—okay, maybe more demanded than begged—for his address in the city. She was reluctant to give it to me, but eventually I wore her down.
And now here I am, pounding on his door like a madwoman, yelling for him to let me in.
But it isn’t Kirill who answers the door.
It’s Kostya.
“The fuck?!” he snaps as I shove past him, tearing through every room in the penthouse, looking for his brother.
“Where is he?!” I shout, furious that Kirill could hijack my induction, hijack my thoughts, my dreams, my heart, and not even have the courtesy to stay afterward and speak to me.
“I’m serious, Kostya! I will flip this whole apartment upside down if you don’t tell me right now where your brother is! ”
“He’s gone, Stella! Okay? He’s fucking gone!” Kostya yells back, looking just as manic as I feel.
“What do you mean he’s gone? Gone where?”
Kostya stares at me for a long pause, then drops onto the couch, no longer looking as heated. He drags both hands through his hair before finally answering. “Russia. Kirill went back to Russia.”
My knees buckle, and I sink down beside him. “Russia? But why would he—”
“Do you really need to ask?” Kostya cuts in, his tone sharp and accusing. “You broke his fucking heart, Red. What did you expect him to do?”
My mind goes foggy as I replay every word I said to Kirill this afternoon. But nothing I could have said explains why he’d leave the country without so much as a goodbye.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper, my fury evaporating, leaving only numbness. “He came to my house. He came to my induction. He looked fine. He looked—”
“Like a man clinging to the hope that you’d come back to him?”
“You know, it’s really fucking annoying when you don’t let people finish their sentences,” I grumble.
“Yeah, well, I’m not the one in love with you, so excuse me if I don’t give a shit.”
“Ouch. I remember you being the nice one,” I joke halfheartedly.
“And I am. Just not to the woman who broke my brother’s heart,” he counters, leveling me with yet another scathing look.
“I get it, Kostya. I made your shit list. Can you just give me a second to process your brother leaving the country before you tear me a new one? Please?”
“Don’t give me ideas,” he mutters, leaning back on the sofa with his hands behind his head and his legs kicked out in front of him.
I sit there in silence, staring into nothing, trying to make sense of what could’ve driven Kirill away.
Aside from you always pushing him away, you mean?
Great. Now even my conscience sounds like Kostya.
“I’ve never seen my brother like that,” Kostya says after a long stretch of silence.
“Nothing has ever affected Kill like the day you broke things off with him. He was a shell of himself. Then days passed and he pretended he was fine, but I could tell he was suffering. Whenever he thought I wasn’t looking, there was this despair on his face…
like someone had physically torn his heart out of his chest.” He shakes his head, jaw tight.
“Seeing Kill like that… Jesus, Stella, what the fuck were you thinking? I was rooting for you. Really rooting for you two, and you go off and do some stupid-ass shit like break his heart. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone more than my brother Sasha, but you?
You got real close, I can tell you that much. ”
Tears sting my eyes as I stare down at my trembling hands. Kostya’s description of Kirill’s pain mirrors my own so perfectly that it’s like we’re the same person.
But we’re not the same person. I’m the only coward in this relationship.
“I got scared,” I confess on a half-whisper.
“Yeah, well, isn’t that what love is all about? Being terrified out of your fucking mind and doing it anyway? I thought you had more balls than that, Red. Sad to see I was wrong.”
I don’t argue. I just sit there, taking Kostya’s verbal beating because, God help me, I deserve it.
“Is he… is he going to come back?” I stammer, nervous to hear his reply.
“What do you care?”
“I care.” I snap my head toward him. “I care, okay?!” I repeat, voice cracking as tears blur my vision. “I… care…a lot. Too much. I fucking care. Don’t ever question that I don’t, because…because…” and that’s all I can manage to say before I break down in an endless ocean of tears.
“Oh fuck,” Kostya mutters under his breath, before wrapping an arm around me and pulling me against him.
I let myself cry into his chest, wishing it were someone else holding me right now. Wishing it were Kirill instead of his brother.
“Shh, it’s okay. I’m not mad anymore,” Kostya whispers, rubbing my shoulder gently. “You’re lucky my Achilles’ heel is a woman’s tears. Can’t stand that shit. Reminds me too much of Katya when she would get home from…never mind. I just can’t handle that shit.”
I don’t say anything to that. I just keep crying, letting all the tears I’ve been holding back for the last two months finally break free. At home, I never allowed myself to cry. Not ever. My family was already worried enough about my mental state. I couldn’t add sobbing on top of everything else.
But here… in Kirill’s living room, where the scent of his clove cigarettes still clings to everything he touched, I let it all come pouring out.
Every torment.
Every ache.
Every ounce of agony I’d shoved down so deep it hollowed me out from the inside.
I just let myself break.
I’m not sure how long we stay like that—me crying while Kostya rubs my back—but it must be a while, because by the time I look up, the sky is pitch black outside.
“Sorry,” I mumble, wiping my face and noticing that Kostya’s shirt is probably ruined.
“No. I’m the one who should apologize,” he says, his expression softer than it was when I stormed inside his home uninvited. “I thought you were toying with my brother’s feelings. I had no idea you were suffering just as much. You two should really talk it out.”
“I know,” I whisper, voice still thick with tears. “That was what I was hoping to do this afternoon back at my house. But he never gave me the chance. I can’t believe he just…left.”
Kostya’s shoulders slump, but thankfully he doesn’t say anything to add salt to the wound.
“Can I ask you something?” he asks, after he’s sure I won’t break apart again.
I nod, still wiping a few tears away.
“Why did you break up in the first place, if you knew it was going to hurt this bad?”
I look at Kostya, a fresh burn of tears rising.
“Forget that I ask,” he says quickly. “You don’t have to tell me anything. It wasn’t my place to ask anyway.”
“When…” I swallow, struggling to form the words. “When is he coming back?”
“He’ll be here for Frankie’s graduation, but then he’ll fly back to Russia with us the next day.”
“Us?”
“Frankie and Darius are spending the summer at Misha’s,” Kostya explains. “Elena will be almost eight months pregnant by then, and Frankie wants to be there for the birth of her baby cousin. Darius is excited about it too.”
“Oh… right.” I dig my teeth into my lip, the sting sharp enough to distract me from how much it hurts being left out of something so important. But what right do I have to be there, when I’m the reason Kirill and I are no longer… anything?
“Can I give you some advice?” Kostya asks, his tone more serious now.
Again, all I can do is nod.
“Make sure the next time you talk to my brother, you’re certain of your feelings for him. If you’re just going to lead him on and flake at the last minute, that’s…well, that’s just fucking cruel. Be sure you love him enough to fight for him. Otherwise…”
“Let him go?” I finish for him.
“You’re right. That shit is annoying,” he chuckles, only for his smile to falter a second later. “I have something for you.”
He rises from the couch and leaves the living room, disappearing down the hall for a few minutes. When he returns, he’s holding an envelope.
“Kirill asked me to give this to you tomorrow when you came to the casino. I have no idea what’s written in here, but…
whatever it is, give the guy a little grace, yeah?
When he came back from your induction, he looked completely shattered.
I don’t want to get your hopes up since I’m not sure any words he wrote are going to make you feel any better. ”
He slips the envelope into my hands, and I press it close to my heart.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.” He pauses. “Do you want me to give you a minute?”
“Actually… Do you think I could read this in his room?”
“Sure,” he says with a sad smile.
I don’t ask Kostya for directions since I’m pretty sure I know which bedroom is his. I rise from the couch and walk down the hall, turning left toward the master suite. When I was ransacking the penthouse, I knew in my gut that this was his room.
Everything is so him here.
Just like back at the lake house, it’s the sophisticated, clean lines of the dark wood furniture that greet me first. And unlike the living room, the smell of clove smoke clinging to the air is stronger here, as if his ghost still lingers in this room.
His leather jacket hangs over the back of a chair, and for a moment I swear that if I touched it, he might walk in behind me.
I take a moment to absorb it all before sitting on the edge of his bed, my fingers trembling around the envelope. After a few fortifying breaths, I open it and let his words wash over me.
Dusha Moya,
I’m sorry for all the grief I caused you.
It took me a while to understand what your true priorities were, but I get it now.
You have a dream to fulfill. A destiny you want more than anything.
And love would only hold you back.
It’s okay, Stella.
I love you too much to ever want to stand in the way of your dreams.
That would be a selfish kind of love. And when it comes to you…
Your happiness has always been worth more than mine.
—Kill
I truly believed I had no tears left to shed today.
Turns out that was wishful thinking.
Because after reading his letter, my heart splinters in two, and I’m not sure I’ll ever stop crying long enough for it to mend again.