28. Chapter 28 #2
But I shake my head, internally fucking recoiling. I’m not ready to talk about what Henrik did to me. I was so fucked up, but I do remember it. Thankfully, it didn’t go as far as it could have. But still…it makes me want to die when I think about it.
I drag a hand down my face, exhaling through my nose. “I keep thinking about the life I could have had,” I say. “Eight years have now come and gone, and I…” I shake my head. “I’ve wasted so much time doing things I never wanted to do.”
“When we get out of this,” he whispers. “You’ll get to finally have that beautiful life, do you hear me?”
My jaw clenches. “I dragged you to fucking Russia. You’re in danger because of me, Micah.”
“You didn’t drag me anywhere,” he says immediately.
I look up at him.
“I was right there with you,” he adds. “Every bad decision. Every high. Every time we thought we were on top of the world, and then whenever we fell from grace. We partied together, slept beside each other, and talked until the moon and sun shook fucking hands, man.”
A faint, humorless breath leaves me. “Yeah. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he replies, his voice quiet. “I hate what they’ve done to you. But we’ll fucking kill them all.”
My chest loosens just enough for a smirk to pull at my lips. I think of the look of terror on Alexei’s goddamn face when he realizes that the monster he created is about to rip him apart. “Yeah, we fucking will,” I say.
Micah leans back in his chair, one ankle hooked over his knee, watching the steam curl from his mug. Neither of us rushes to fill the silence.
Then there’s movement on the couch to our left, and Adriana appears a second later. Her auburn hair is a mess, falling over one side of her face. She’s wearing one of the oversized sweaters Heather found for her, her face still tired from sleep.
Her green eyes dart between Micah and me the moment she sees us sitting there together. Her expression flickers with caution before she looks away again and heads toward the kitchen without a word. The sound of the coffee pot filling the silence feels strangely loud.
I watch her quietly over the rim of my mug.
And it’s weird. Not in a bad way, necessarily…
just strange. Because for so long, every emotion attached to Adriana has felt sharp enough to tear through flesh and bone.
Rage. Betrayal. Grief. Want. Resentment.
Dependency. All tangled together until I couldn’t separate one from the other.
Now, sitting here watching her pour coffee into a chipped mug while morning light catches her tired face, all that noise is quiet.
She turns after a second, leaning back against the counter with the mug cradled between both hands.
“I wish I could sleep somewhere else,” she mutters. “If it’s not you two out here at the ass crack of dawn, it’s Adela and Rafe.”
Micah snorts softly into his coffee, and I swear to god, for one split second, it almost feels like years ago. Before everything in my life broke apart. Before overdoses and blood and manipulation and all the ways we learned to survive each other.
Adriana walks over a second later and lowers herself into the chair beside Micah.
None of us speaks immediately. Because there’s too much history sitting at this table with us.
The silence stretches long enough that I can practically feel all the old versions of ourselves lingering around the room like fucking ghosts.
Nights blurred by pills and alcohol and screaming matches that none of us knew how to stop.
And of course, all of the times that she took from me over the years.
I glance down at my coffee. “I had a nightmare,” I admit quietly.
Micah’s eyes lift first.
Adriana’s follow a second later.
“It felt real,” I continue, staring at the steam twisting upward from the mug. “Way too fucking real.”
“What about?” Micah asks.
I don’t hesitate. “Alexei had Emma there. In that fucking basement.” The words alone make my goddamn chest hurt.
Adriana’s expression shifts immediately, her fingers tightening around her mug.
“And I couldn’t stop him,” I say, voice roughening. “I couldn’t fucking move.”
Silence settles again.
“I’ve woken up thinking I’m back there again, too.
Or the guesthouse.” Then Adriana exhales softly through her nose.
“That’s your worst fear now,” she says gently.
“He dangled that in front of you the entire time. And even if you tried to forget her…you never could. She always lived inside of you. She’s what kept you alive. ”
I look at her. “Yeah,” I admit.
Her eyes soften. “I’m glad she did,” she says quietly.
I blink. “Glad?”
A sad smile touches her mouth. “Not glad that you’re hurting or anything, because I know you are,” she clarifies. “But I’m glad that your worst fear is loving someone enough to be afraid for them. To stay alive for them.”
Something in my chest shifts uncomfortably, because there was a time when my worst fear was myself. Or maybe worse…when I didn’t care enough to fear anything at all.
Micah rubs a hand over his jaw, glancing between us. “We all got really used to self-destruction,” he says after a moment. “It was basically our entire fucking personality for a while.”
A breath of laughter escapes Adriana before she shakes her head. “God. We were exhausting to be around, I’m sure.”
“You still are,” Micah mutters.
She kicks his shin under the table, and he shoots her a glare.
I watch them quietly for a second before looking back down at my hands.
“I think I forgot what normal people even feel like,” I admit. “You guys have been my entire adult life, really. I don’t know how to be anything other than what I’ve been made to be. How can I find myself after all of this? I worry that I won’t.”
The honesty of it surprises me a little.
Adriana rests her chin lightly against her hand, studying me with tired eyes.
“I don’t think any of us were ever normal, Jude.
We were all taken advantage of one way or another.
I have my own history, but it doesn’t excuse anything.
You and Micah are good people. You didn’t deserve any of that.
” Her gaze falls, and she suddenly looks uncomfortable.
“We were surviving things we didn’t know how to survive. Some of us…crueler than others.”
We all sit with her words, knowing precisely what she means.
We were all carrying something back then.
Fame. Addiction. Loneliness. Trauma we didn’t yet have names for.
We just handed each other substances, distractions, and skin, and called it coping.
And somehow convinced ourselves that was enough.
She was a child when Nolan poisoned her, and has been treated like shit her entire life.
I see her, but I don’t think I’ll ever forgive her for her role in my abuse.
If anything, there’s a knot that's never gone away from our relationship. Will it? Will it ease if I finally just let her go? Because I’m tired of holding onto it.
I don’t know the answer to that.
“I used to think if I inserted myself enough into your lives, that things would be bearable for me,” Adriana says quietly after a moment, staring into her coffee now. “But I was very wrong.”
Pain and recognition flicker across Micah’s face.
“And all it really did was make me drown with you.”
The words settle, and I look at her. “I blamed you for a lot,” I admit quietly. “Still do.”
Her eyes lift to mine immediately. “I know.”
“I still don’t know what to do with some of it. We all have so much history together, and I…I don’t think I’ll ever be in a place where I can forgive you.”
A tiny nod. “I know that, too.”
There’s no defensiveness in her tone, just acceptance.
Micah breaks the heaviness first, leaning back with a sigh. “This conversation desperately needs another coffee and maybe a therapist, or something.”
Adriana snorts softly. “Emma is the therapist.” She jams her thumb in the direction of the stairs. “Go get her.”
“Hell no,” he replies. “She and Heather love their sleep. I am definitely not fucking with that. No matter how fucked up we are.”
A real laugh slips out of me then, because I realize something. For the first time in years, none of us are pretending anymore.