Chapter Six
My boyfriend was deep in work on the couch crying and there was nothing I could do to stop him. Truthfully, I was crying too. But his grief was worse than mine. Misha’s was about his father and his mother. He was having twice the amount of pain in his heart than I had because he’d lost the man who raised him, and instantly been left behind by the other.
Unlike the majority of the people left behind at Sapphire’s mansion the other day, Retta had survived. She’d been shot in the shoulder and had a nasty black eye, but that was the worst of it. And truth be told, just like Yeva, she’d done more damage to the three men who she said had come for her. The ones who now lay in vats of acid thanks to Raya and her men. But I wasn’t shocked at that – Retta had been Malone’s wife, after all. I might not have seen her do more than help him clean his guns, but we were all aware she could shoot and throw a good punch.
The moment we had arrived home to hear she was in the local hospital Raya trusted, alongside Darius, I had been filled with relief, but she had been the one I worried about the least. I was more concerned about the innocent house full of children who had no chance to defend themselves.
Relief for Retta’s safety had been short-lived the moment Lincoln had explained to her what happened to his dad and Retta had left the hospital in the middle of the night, refusing to come back to the mansion or say another word to any of us since. Even Misha. He had called her non-stop, desperate to check in on her at the hotel Raya had checked her into down the road. But his mother hadn’t been able to speak – we’d all heard her crying and the room service bill she’d been racking up was mostly alcohol, not food.
She’d lost her husband. She’d lost him and now she was lost too, and there was nothing I could do to fix any of the Leroux family. Fuck me, I would try. But I really wished she had found a way to at least be there for her sons and not just cut them off entirely. I could have done with a hug or two, so fuck knows what Misha and Linc would have been better off with.
“Mish.” His head snapped up when I said his name and he tried to wipe his eyes quickly and pretend I hadn’t watched him stare at his laptop screen in silence for the last few minutes as he cried. “You don’t need to hide your grief from me. I get it. But I think you need to take a break and-”
“I don’t have time to be sad.” As if to emphasize his point, he pulled his laptop closer, monitoring the shitty nightclub and Widow and Delilah as they headed into a bathroom. With a gangster they were no doubt going to kill trailing along to his doom.
I hoped they gouged his eyes out. Then his heart. Anything gory and painful like he and all the rest of his kind had earned. It was what I wanted to do had I not wound up on guard duty for everyone who remained at Sapphire’s mansion. We wouldn’t be caught unaware again – anytime a bulk of us went out, we would leave enough of us behind to take care of things. Not to mention the entire team of Red Diamonds gangsters that were walking the perimeter that Beau had summoned, or the entirely new surveillance system and whatever else Beau had snuck into the grounds in his bid to distract himself.
“You have time to do whatever you want. We’re all doing our jobs, but you need to look after yourself, too.” I headed closer, handing Misha a bottle of water I had brought from the kitchen and waiting until he started drinking it before I took a seat on the chair next to him.
He hadn’t been looking after himself half as well lately and I was done with it. If he refused to take care of himself properly, then I would step in and do it for him until he felt well enough to do it again. It was the least I could do for someone I loved.
“I’ll do that when Saph is home.” He insisted with a little huff. “Or when my mother can stand to look at me. Maybe even when I don’t feel so damn guilty for what happened.”
I had no idea where he got his ideas from, but I wasn’t having it – I wasn’t letting him blame himself. I was blaming myself already for having put the collar around Malone’s neck instead of telling John O’Malley to go and fuck himself with the pointiest stick he could find. Maybe one wrapped in barbed wire, too.
“Your mom-”
“Don’t.” Misha cut me off. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I wasn’t usually so pushy, but I had no patience anymore. My heart was torn between wanting to be there for Misha and Lincoln, and needing to be outside, hunting down my girl and bringing her home. I was stressed the fuck out and there was only so much I could take.
I was done being nice. I was going to be… well, not mean. But I was going to be a fuck ton more pushy with my niceness.
“Can we talk about your dad?” Leaning back in my seat, I tried my best to sound casual and like I wasn’t playing catch with a live grenade or something stupid.
Misha almost snapped anyway as he glared at me. “No.”
“Fine.” Bending forward, I yanked his laptop out of the way, closing the lid and putting it beside me on the chair. “You can have a break now, then. Fight me about it and I’ll put you on your fucking knees.”
His hands balled into fists, his non-existent temper flaring. “I bet you’d like me on my knees.”
“I really would. But not yet – not when you look like that.” He was taunting me and I wouldn’t fall for it, even if it would have been a great distraction. Not when he looked one moment from sobbing and hadn’t slept for God knows how long.
Misha wasn’t Sapphire. He didn’t need sex as a distraction or a way out of his head. He needed something different, and I was eager to get that shit sorted out so he could return to the tiniest bit of his usual self again.
Scowling, he got to his feet, stepping toward me and no doubt thinking of all the ways he could steal his laptop back and continue to work himself into the ground.
“Are you calling me ugly?” His jaw ticked.
“No, you beautiful idiot, I’m calling you sleep deprived and stressed. Now get the fuck over your anger. We’re going to workout, eat, shower and sleep, and I am not hearing an argument.” I joined him, getting to my feet and towering over him with a wicked grin.
I could see he wanted to argue with me. He was practically bouncing on his feet with the urge to tell me to take a running leap off the nearest bridge and leave him alone. But he was foolish if he thought I would let him get away with that. Or anything remotely self-sabotaging again.
“But I-”
My hand wrapped around Misha’s throat, shutting him up instantly.
“I’m bigger than you and stronger than you. And I have no objections to dragging you through this house and forcing you to do whatever the fuck I want you to do. So be a good boy and do as you’re told the nice way.”
It wasn’t like it was a baseless threat. I would have done it.
He glared at me, and I could see he wanted to argue with me more than anything. There was a burning desire in his pretty hazel eyes to tell me to fuck off and that he was an adult – he could do whatever it was he wanted, no matter how stupid. But Misha wasn’t dumb, and he knew I wasn’t playing. If I had to make him look after himself, then I would, and he knew it.
“Fine.” He huffed. “I can give you a single night of compliance, but that’s it. Don’t push me.”
Turned out he meant his words. Two hours later he was collapsing on the floor of Sapphire’s shower, after I’d made him box long enough to want to die inside. Punching the bag had made his anger hotter, but after a while it had relented – he’d been calmer, less sad. There was something different in the way he looked at me that said just a little piece of the hatred he was suffering through had been tampered down.
Only then did I allow him to stop and helped drag his sorry ass to the shower. He was dead on his feet, but it was hardly a hassle for me to get in with him and help him out. Even more so when he was clean, had eaten, and wrapped himself up in bed. I couldn’t stop myself from curling up next to him, even when I wasn’t tired. Being beside someone I loved seemed like the best plan, considering I was only faking being okay.
Losing Malone had reminded me of losing my parents and instead of having a bunch of responsible adults to look out for me and make me feel better, I was the one in charge.
I had to step up and take care of people.
I had to do the same thing for everyone around me that they had offered me.
“Thanks.” Misha whispered after a while of silence as he stared into the distance, not looking at anything in particular. “I needed this.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Mish.” I spoke through the tears I wanted to shed. “Grief is the worst pain in the world, and I know nothing I say will make it better, but you will get through it. You will feel more like yourself again one day, and even if it takes a decade, it doesn’t matter. Because we will be here, and we will love you regardless of how you need to act to stop the pain. If I have to do this shit every day to make you feel a little better, then I will. It’s nothing – all I care about is that you’re okay.”
It wasn’t even properly dark outside – the sun was now almost peeking through the clouds. We had no idea how the mission Widow and the others were on had gone, aside from a single text from Beau to let us know they were returning home. Not that many feet away, Yeva, Diamond, Darius, and Tanner were all in the same room, sleeping in one giant space. Or at least everyone was sleeping and Tanner was in a coma. But still. There were other people with trauma and desires for vengeance in the building. There were other things to be done. Our girl was missing – Henley could have still been missing…
But I would stay here. I would stay in bed and hug my boyfriend until the tiniest piece of his heart hurt less and I would have no regrets about it. Nearly everything else could wait.
Misha was important. I had to help him the same way he’d helped me all those years ago by holding him together so he didn’t break.
“Mom said she didn’t want to talk to me.” His voice broke through our breathing and the croak of nearby crickets, when I thought he’d fell asleep. “She answered the phone the other day and said she couldn’t stomach the sight of us when we look like dad and asked for some space before she came home again. And I know she lost her husband and is grieving, but I… I just…” Tears burned harder until he was sobbing against my chest. “I need my mom and she’s not here. Again. She’s never been here when I needed her the most and now I don’t have dad either.”
There was nothing I could say to that. Misha was right. His dad was dead. His mother was unable to push her pain aside to be there for her children, even if I thought she ought to have done so. He had lost half of his blood family in a single day. But he had me. He had me, Kody, Logan. He had all the other people in the house and beyond who cared for him.
Misha had Lincoln.
He would have Sapphire again.
We would figure this shit out. We would find a way for everything to be okay and I would make sure that Misha never had to go through the same thing again no matter how many nights I had to lie there for hours on end, letting him cry on my shoulder as I whispered promises that everything would eventually be okay and no matter what, he wasn’t alone.
He had me, and that would never change.