Chapter 30
ROMAN
Now that it’s all over, everything is falling to place in my mind.
It’s like the clock has been turned back in a way. I try to focus on arranging the cleanup and the process of making arrangements to move the guns as well. With the warehouse being compromised and the cleanup at the club still to do, the coming days will be busy.
Normally, I’d be ready for it. I’m always ready to fight, build, and rebuild for the brotherhood. This time, however, it feels incomplete.
Something has changed within me. The moment I saw Sergei’s man with his hands all over Ember, everything went hazy and I acted. Whatever control I have ever possessed was gone in those moments. I needed to cleanse the earth of the fucker who dared to lay a hand on her.
The last time I felt that way for any woman, I married her. No matter what’s happened, my mind and body have been wired to Ember. I was made to protect and keep her.
It’s not an easy thing for me to come to after all these years. We rescued her and my daughter, and for the sake of my own sanity, I focused my attention on Sasha. Making sure she was all right. I couldn’t yet grasp it all.
It’s been about an hour since all that and I’ve found myself here. In my car, looking up at my house and wondering what I’m going to say to Ember when I walk through the door. The last time we talked, I made it clear that I wanted her to leave. I was so sure that she had been the one to betray me.
My heart, or whatever is left of it, knew better. It knew when we made love that last time. It’s known it all along.
I have to have it out with her. Whatever happens next, however it happens, she needs to know where my head is.
I made the walk into the house. It still needs to be cleaned. Our cleaners are going to have a field day over these next few days between my house and the warehouse. I have to set all of that aside for now.
Up the stairs and to the first floor. I peek into Sasha’s room to see that she’s not there. And then I hear her voice across the hall.
Through the door, I hear her talking in frantic tones. The closer I get to the source, the closed door of my room, the more I hear her.
“… whatever it is, it can’t be that bad…”
I hear Ember’s low voice. Calm. Resolute. She’s trying to talk her down.
I knock and the talking stops. “Ember?” I pause, half expecting her to answer. She doesn’t. “It’s Roman. Let me in.”
There’s nothing at first. It’s almost as though they’ve gone quiet as a way to hide from me. Like I didn’t just hear them talking.
Finally, the knob turns and the door opens. Ember looks up at me with her soulful eyes. They’ve gone from their normal icy blue to a wintry gray. The sadness in them is so heavy, I can feel it in the hallway.
She only looks at me for a moment before looking away and stepping aside. “Come in.”
The moment I step in, Sasha says, “Dad, tell her she can’t leave.”
She’s standing there, still in the clothes she had on when we found her. Her face is still dirty and her red hair is still mussed and streaked with warehouse muck. The dirt on her face and hands makes her look all the more desperate.
“Please.” Tears have welled up in her eyes and are starting to fall down her cheeks, cutting through the dirt in streaks. “Tell her to stay.”
“Sasha,” I start, and she cuts me off.
“No! Don’t tell me to leave or that it’ll be all right. It’s not. It won’t be all right as long as you’re letting Ember go! She can’t go! Sh–She loves you. And she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you! Don’t you see that?”
I take Sasha gently by the shoulders and say, “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Sasha. You’ve been through a lot today and I won’t have you getting wound up over something you don’t even understand.”
Her face crashes before me, tears rolling down in rivers now. “Dad,” she whimpers. “Please don’t do this.”
I sigh and brush a bit of her hair out of her face. “Go take a shower and get changed, please.”
“Dad…”
“You heard me, Sash.” I don’t yell. I don’t even command. The words are firm, insistent. It’s enough. She steps back from me, throwing a helpless look over my shoulder at Ember. Then she leaves us alone.
And so here we are. Ember walks past me and to her suitcase and starts zipping it up. “This is hard for her,” I say.
She nods. “She’s fifteen. She doesn’t understand. But don’t worry. She won’t be mad at you forever. You’re still her father.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say. This ache inside me wants to reach out to her.
“I know that there’s nothing more I can say to you,” she says softly, her fingers tracing the line of the suitcase.
“I’m not going to waste your time or beg for you to let me stay.
What I did…” She pauses and takes a small breath.
When she speaks again, her voice shakes.
“I know better. I was raised by a cop. I knew the risks that might come with talking to the FBI and I… I met up with them anyway.”
“Ember—”
“Let me finish.” She turns me to me, her eyes steady even though her voice isn’t.
“I knew about your meeting, but I never told them. Something inside me kept me from telling them anything that might hurt you. I think it’s because…
it’s because I never wanted you to have to suffer.
Is that strange? Me wanting that of you? ”
I don’t have a response. All I can do is watch. It’s like I’m standing here and letting water drip through my hands.
“Anyway, you can hate me for meeting with them. You can decide that I can’t be trusted for all that, but I’m standing here, telling you right now that I’m not the mole. I never was. I could never—”
“I know, Ember.” The words come out almost involuntarily. “I know you didn’t tell them anything.”
She tilts her head curiously at me. Her mouth moves, but no sound comes out.
“For the record, it was Ivan. You know, my obshchak?”
Her nose wrinkles. “The accountant? With the glasses?”
“Don’t let his meek appearance fool you. He was Bratva, through and through. He just happened to serve another Pakhan and I never knew it.”
She stares for a long moment, then, “So… you believe me, then?”
I sigh. This feeling I’ve been trying to reconcile, the thing in my heart that I was fighting against even though everything in front of me was telling me otherwise…
“I think, deep down, I always did,” I say.
“You have to understand, Ember, the idea that no one can ever be trusted, it’s engrained in the brotherhood.
We’re taught at a young age that even your blood will betray you if it suits them to do so. ”
She nods and takes that in for a second. “I don’t know if that makes all this any better or not.”
“It doesn’t,” I say. “I pushed you away because I’ve been taught not to listen to myself. The Bratva is everything, you see.”
She just stares at me, all the hurt I piled on her reflected in her eyes. After a few moments, she looks away from me, down at her hands.
“I meant what I said,” she says softly. “I am in love with you. Even now. Even at the end of this relationship. I…” She trails off, then looks back at her suitcase. “I’ll always love you, Roman.”
I walk up to her and touch her chin, turning it up to me.
“I meant what I said as well,” I tell her.
“I love you. I’ve walked around with this hole inside me since my wife died with nothing coming close to filling it…
until you. You came into my life and you changed my mind about what I need in a woman.
” I slip one arm around her waist and pull her to me.
She lets me, easily succumbing to my touch.
“Don’t go,” I tell her.
I lean into her, my lips brushing hers as she turns her head up to me. “You don’t want me,” she says softly. “I’m an outsider.”
“You’re mine. You can never be an outsider.” I kiss her. The familiar taste of her lips warms my body and my fills my heart. When our lips part, I only say one word. “Stay.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and we kiss again. She pulls me onto the bed, her hands finding the buttons of my shirt.
“I love you, Roman,” she whispers over and over. “I love you.”