14. Brandon
brANDON
I’m still holding Karolina on the floor of the dance studio when my phone chimes with a security alert.
I immediately grab it from my pocket to check the feed from the cameras at the front gates to the long driveway.
Ghost gives the camera a sardonic salute, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
No one is coming to threaten Karolina.
Now that my friend is here to help watch over her, I can finally track down Pasquale Costa and kill him for scaring her at the café.
After I extract the full extent of the truth from him.
I have to know if others are coming for her.
The fact that he might’ve been working with Ivanov is beyond unnerving. They shouldn’t even know each other, so how did they both end up in York at the same time? How did they both know to target Karolina, not me directly?
If someone is orchestrating a coordinated attack…
“What’s wrong?” she asks, brow furrowed with concern.
I kiss the worry line away. “Nothing. My friend is here to help me figure out who’s threatening you. He’ll help keep you safe while I handle this.”
She doesn’t so much as flinch at the implication that I’ll kill Costa for her. She trusts me implicitly, and she’s always been a realist; survival means doing what’s necessary.
From now on, I’ll fight all her battles for her. She’ll never be plagued by nightmares of her own necessary violence ever again.
“Is this the one you’ve told me about?” she asks. “The friend who’s good with tech?”
“Yes. He’s the best. He’ll help me locate the man who threatened you, and he’ll stay here with you until I’ve dealt with anyone who might even think about targeting you to get to me.”
She shakes her head slightly. “I still can’t quite believe this is happening. You have enemies, Brandon. It barely feels real. Like something out of fiction.”
I study her carefully. “Does it bother you that I’ve made enemies?”
She’s said that she accepts I’ve killed criminals, but she thinks it was all during heated fights in the ring. She has no idea how cold and calculating I can be while hunting down my quarry for money.
“Of course it bothers me,” she replies, but she’s not spiteful. “I don’t want either of us to be in danger.”
She’s worried for me.
“You’re smiling like a maniac again,” she observes.
I kiss her, hard and fast. “You make me the happiest man in the world.”
Her lips curve with her own pleasure, but she eyes me like I’m nuts. “There will be time to be happy once your enemies are gone.”
I’ll find particularly savage satisfaction in eliminating any man who might frighten her, but she doesn’t need to know that.
I take her hand in mine and get to my feet. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to Ghost.”
She stands with me and grabs her clothes that we tossed aside before we had sex.
“Ghost?” she repeats. “What kind of name is that?”
“An alias.”
“Yeah, I guessed that much. I mean, what’s his real name? I’m not calling your friend Ghost.”
I shrug. “He used to go by Logan, but he won’t like it if you call him that.”
“Why not?”
I shake my head. “I’m not the only one who reinvented himself. He’s Ghost now.”
She frowns, clearly not satisfied at the idea of using my friend’s alias.
“You might’ve gone by Bones and Rand, but you’re still Brandon,” she insists. “I would’ve preferred if you hadn’t reinvented yourself.”
I smother a wince. She’s still unhappy that I lied to her about my identity.
My phone chimes again. Ghost is at the front door.
“I need to let him in,” I say, changing the subject. “Do you want to meet him? If I tell him to keep his distance, he will.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to meet him?”
“I know him from a part of my life I’d rather you didn’t hear much about.”
She gives my fingers a gentle squeeze. “You’ll tell me about it when you’re ready. For now, I’m happy to meet your friend.”
I cut my gaze away. I don’t ever intend to tell her about those terrible years when I gave in to my most vicious urges.
A few minutes later, I find Ghost waiting for us in the foyer.
I frown. “You let yourself in?”
He taps his phone. “World’s best hacker, remember? Of course I can get past your security system. But don’t worry,” he says quickly. “I’m the one who installed it when you moved here. No one else will be able to get in without blowing the door off its hinges.”
My frown deepens to a scowl. I don’t want him referencing the possibility of that kind of assault in front of Karolina.
“Is that something I should be concerned about?” she asks coolly.
My brave girl isn’t cowering.
I lift our intertwined hands and kiss her knuckles.
“No one will get close to you,” Ghost says before I can reassure her. “I promised Ragnar I’ll watch your back.”
Her gaze whips to mine. “Ragnar?”
“It’s just a nickname.” I struggle not to glare at Ghost for his slip-up.
Karolina won’t like the prospect that I’ve concealed yet another layer of my identity from her.
But she’s far too clever to let it slide.
“That man in the café told me he was coming for me because of you, Brandon. He told me it was about revenge. About Ragnarok.”
The ground seems to shift beneath my feet.
Shit.
I had no idea that Costa used my assassin’s alias in front of her.
Ghost makes it so much worse when he says, “So, you finally told her who you really are. Thank fuck. I didn’t want to have to keep track of your web of lies.”
Her lips thin with mounting anger as she starts to put the pieces together. “I thought that man was talking about blowing up my life. Or I thought maybe he meant that he was going to kill me. But it wasn’t about that at all, was it? He was talking about you, Brandon.”
She says it like an accusation.
Ghost curses under his breath. “You didn’t tell her that part?”
“Tell me what?” she demands. “What does it mean that you’re Ragnarok?”
“I’m going to the kitchen,” Ghost announces. “I’ve been traveling for twelve hours. You’d better have beer in the fridge.” He brushes past us and adds, “Sort your shit out, Ragnar. I told you I don’t want to be involved in your drama.”
I growl and take a menacing step after him, but Karolina’s fingers tighten to a vise around mine.
“Oh no, you don’t. You’re not going anywhere until you explain.”
Ghost has the goddamn nerve to laugh at my expense as he strolls into the next room.
Nothing has ever been less fucking funny.
Her peridot eyes glitter. “Do not lie to me,” she warns. “I told you I’d give you time to open up about your past, but this is connected to the men who are threatening me.”
I wince. “I didn’t lie to you about it.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “You omitted it. Just like you didn’t tell me about your other identities. I want the truth. Right now. What does Ragnarok mean?”
“I don’t want to tell you. I never want you to know.”
Her eyes narrow. “What you want and what I need from you seem to be entirely different things. But I won’t compromise on this. Complete honesty from now on, Brandon. You want to earn my trust? Prove it.”
“Ragnarok is an assassin.” The admission is dragged from me like razorblades in my throat.
She stills.
Several seconds tick by. They feel like a lifetime.
“You’re Ragnarok.” Her tone is so calm and even. I can’t read her at all.
I manage a tight nod.
“You didn’t only kill in the ring. You lied to me. Again.”
“I didn’t lie,” I insist.
She throws up her hands, furious and frustrated. “Fine. You misled me.”
“I didn’t want you to learn what I really am,” I plead.
“Were they all criminals? Was that part true?”
I grimace. “Yes. But I told you before that I’m not a vigilante. I’m a monster, Karolina. You just never saw it in me.” I swallow hard. “The prospect of you seeing it now is shredding me. I can’t lose you.”
She purses her lips. “You wouldn’t lose me over this. Not if you explain. The only way you’ll lose me is if you keep deceiving me.” Her voice roughens with pain. “I can’t bear it. I want you so badly, but you’re hurting me when you hide things from me.”
Her admission that she wants me makes my legs go weak, and I drop to my knees before her. She doesn’t pull away when I take her chilled hands in mine.
“I never want to hurt you.”
“Then stop doing it,” she whispers. “Tell me why you think you’re a monster. It’s more than the fact that you were an assassin. You said you’ve always been this way. What did you do?”
A shudder wracks my body.
“It’s not something I did. It’s what I am. What I was born to be. Killing those men meant nothing to me. Murder is in my blood.”
Her cheeks pale. “You killed someone when you were young?” she guesses. “Is that why you ended up in foster care?”
“No,” I confess. “My parents died. I never lied to you about that.”
“Then why do you think you’re a monster?” Her jaw firms. “What did they do to you to make you think that?”
She’s righteously angry. On my behalf.
I cling to it like a lifeline, and my hands tighten around hers. She doesn’t recoil.
The truth spills out of me. “My father was a murderer. A serial killer.”
The last of the color drains from her face.
“That same tainted blood runs in my veins. My mom…”
“What happened to her?” Karolina prompts when my throat closes.
I have to continue. I can’t seem to stop now. I can’t deny her anything, not even this. Not even if it makes her walk away from me.
Because deep down, I know I deserve to lose her.
“She found out what my father was. About the women he killed. We were under police protection for a year, and every time she looked at me, she saw my dad. She saw him in me, and she hated me for it. She was afraid of me.”
Karolina’s eyes shine, and she caresses my cheek. “You were a child.”
I turn my face into her palm, breathing her in like I need her more than oxygen.
“How did she die?”
Nausea curls in my stomach. The blood. The wicked gleam of the blade. The methodical way he made her scream…
“He found us,” I say, and it’s as though someone else is speaking. I’m lost in the dark memory, no longer present with her.
“Look at me, Brandon.”
My name. My name in her sweet voice.
I focus on her: the center of my world.
“You’re safe,” she promises. “The past can’t hurt you anymore.”
“I couldn’t stop him. I didn’t.”
Tears glimmer on her cheeks, but her voice is steady. “You were just a little boy. How could you possibly have stopped him?
My cheeks flush with shameful heat. “Maybe part of me wanted her to die. Then she could never look at me with disgust ever again.”
Karolina’s hands gently bracket my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones. They glisten with my own traitorous tears.
I clutch at her waist, holding her close.
“What happened to your father?” she prompts softly.
The gunshot. Gore splattering on the wall. The gaping hole in the back of my dad’s head.
You’re my legacy, Brandon. Don’t let me down. His final words ring in my ears.
“He killed himself before the cops could arrest him.”
Karolina’s throat works, as though she’s swallowing down her own surge of nausea. “You said he killed your mom. Did he hurt you, too?”
“He never laid a hand on me,” I say bitterly. “He didn’t want to risk his rotten legacy.”
“Don’t say that about yourself. You did nothing wrong.”
Ice crystalizes in my veins. “Then explain to me why I was able to kill for money. Why was I capable of murdering again and again, and I felt nothing. I hunted those men down, and I ended them without a second thought.”
She considers me for a long moment. “Did you like it?”
“What does that matter?” I challenge. “I’m evil, Karolina. It’s in my soul. I was born to do this.”
“Did you like it?” she repeats, refusing to allow me to evade her question.
“I don’t feel remorse.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I’ve never thought about it before.
“I did what was necessary,” I finally say.
Her fingers trail through my hair, and I shiver at a rush of foolish hope.
“You didn’t take pleasure in it,” she surmises.
I hear the ring of truth in her words, even if they don’t quite resonate in my soul.
“You can’t excuse what I did.”
No matter how desperately I want her to.
“You can’t tell me what to do.” She’s gentle in her defiance. “You survived, Brandon. That’s all that matters to me. I thought you were dead.”
“You have to hate me for it.” The deep-seated belief has been with me too long to let it go so easily.
I never wanted to tell her any of this. She’s too sweet and pure to accept what I am at my core.
“I don’t have to do anything,” she refutes. “I accept you, Brandon. For all that you are. After all that you’ve done. I’m not capable of hating you.”
My fingers flex into her waist, clinging to her with the bloodstained hands that will never be clean.
I can’t let her go.
By some miracle, I haven’t lost her. She hasn’t turned from me in disgust.
She grasps my shoulders, directing me to my feet. My forehead rests on hers. We exchange ragged breaths. I can’t get close enough.
“We’re alike. We’re meant to be together,” she murmurs. “We have each other. That’s all that matters.”
I shake my head, even as I yearn for it to be true.
“What you did to Carter doesn’t compare to my sins. You protected yourself.”
“So did you,” she insists. “You were shot. I hurt you so badly. But you survived. You did what was necessary, too.”
I’m not ready to accept it, but I’m selfish enough to nod my agreement.
I’ll do anything as long as she keeps touching me so tenderly.
I won’t risk driving her away. I’ve given her this one opportunity to choose to leave me, and she didn’t take it.
She’ll never escape me now.