Chapter 44
YELENA
“I’d say you got through that with flying colors.”
My heart is as full as my belly as Achilles and I walk down the tree-lined block of brownstones after leaving my parents’ house after dinner.
I slip my hand into his, squeezing as I sink closer to him, needing the brush of his arm against mine and his strong body pressed to me.
I giggle. “I’m just amazed my dad didn’t pull a knife on you or threaten to cut off your balls.”
Achilles grunts tightly. “That would have been crazy.”
He smiles, untangling our hands and wrapping his arm around my shoulder to pull me even closer, like he knew that's what I was really after.
Of course he did.
Which is…ugh.
I almost want to say “part of the problem”, even though I'm unwilling to voice even inside my own head that there is any problem.
I just want to move past it and forget that dull ache of betrayal I first felt when I realized the extent of his…interest in me.
Again, I’m torn. Maybe it speaks volumes about how deranged I am, but dammit, I am attracted to the notion of him outright stalking me. I’m turned on by the idea of him breaking past every wall, smashing every lock, and creeping into every shadow of my darkest fantasies to drag them into the light.
I love that he did all of that.
But there’s also part of me—probably the sane part—that can’t quite get past never having had a choice.
Yes, I’m crazy about him.
I’m in love with him, honestly, to an extent that almost freaks me out.
But this whole thing started with a lie. If the foundation is rotted, what hope do we have of building on it?
When we get to where Achilles parked his car, I sigh as I unwrap his arm from around me. “So,” I tease. “Your place? Or are you ready to chance my place now?”
I might be hell bent on moving forward to eventually forget how this all started, but my friends aren’t all on the same page. Arianna, for example, texted our group chat the other day about “stabbing Achilles in the dick with a fork”.
So, you know, some anger issues there.
My friends all know how I feel about Achilles. But they also know now how he dug into my life and rigged the game before we even started playing it.
Unsurprisingly, they’re not exactly thrilled about that part.
But whatever grudge my girl squad still has vis-à-vis Achilles, it’s nothing compared to Damiano's.
Forget stabbing Achilles’ dick with a fork. Dame wants to decapitate him and put his head on a spike right in the middle of the quad.
Achilles smirks. “After dinner with your father, I think I can handle Damiano.”
I giggle. “Maybe, but for the sake of your head and its continued connection to your neck, let’s do your place tonight?”
He smiles. “Deal. But we’re not going back to campus yet.”
He takes my hands in his.
“I need to show you something,” he growls. “You haven’t forgiven me for—”
“Of course I have.” I squeeze his hands as I look into his eyes. “Achilles, I—”
“No,” he says quietly. “You haven’t, not yet. And that’s okay,” he adds before I can open my mouth to protest again. “I don’t want you to forgive me yet. I need to show you something first.” He reaches into his pocket. “Do you trust me?”
My bottom lip retreats between my teeth. Then I nod.
Achilles holds up a blindfold.
Fifteen minutes of light Manhattan traffic later with the blindfold over my eyes, we come to a stop at the side of a busy-sounding street. I hold his hand as he leads me someplace quieter, into what I think is a room until I hear the ding and feel us start to rise.
“Watch your step here,” he says gently, helping me up a flight of stairs after we exit the elevator.
A door opens, and I shiver at the sudden chilly wind whipping around me. Achilles guides me forward, and I hear the door close behind us as he leads me across a flat, windy surface, the sound of the city a little more distant than before.
“Right here.”
I laugh nervously as he plants me in place. When I reach for the blindfold, he gently pulls my hands away.
“I do bend the world around me to get what I want,” he murmurs, taking my hands and pulling me close. I can’t see him, but I can feel his gaze on me, and I swallow as I inhale his comforting scent and squeeze his hands with mine.
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t know that what I did was wrong,” he growls.
“Achilles—“
“No. Let me say this, little prey.”
He inhales and exhales slowly.
"I'm not going to stand here and pretend I don’t know what I did. I learned every fucking thing about you before you ever knew who I was. I made sure the game was won before you even sat down to play, Yelena.”
He grips my hands tighter.
“I took away your choice, and I know exactly what that cost you, because I know you,” he hisses.
“I know you better than anyone, maybe even including yourself. Which is why I know you’re as conflicted as I am over the simple fact that whatever we are now, it began with me cheating at the game.
But here’s the part I don’t know how to move past or fix,” he sighs.
“Even knowing that what I did was wrong, and that I took away your agency…”
I gasp when he lifts my knuckles and gently brushes his lips across them.
“I would do it all again.”
His voice drags over my skin like the sensual, lethal edge of a blade.
“Every single thing,” he growls. “Because the alternative is a version of my life without you in it, and that's not something I'm able or willing to accept.”
My throat bobs as his thumb traces across my knuckles.
"So now I'm giving you the one thing I should have given you from the start.”
His hands squeeze mine tightly, not letting go.
“I’m going to give you a choice, Yelena. A real one. Not one where I've already calculated the outcome."
My pulse skips as his voice drops lower.
"Stay, or walk. Your choice. But know that if you stay, I will spend the rest of my life making sure you never regret it,” he growls. “And also know that I will never, ever apologize for seeing you, and instantly falling in love with you, and then moving heaven and hell to make you mine."
My mouth falls open.
I don’t need to think about it anymore. I don’t need to weigh out how I feel.
Because in this moment I realize that if our roles were reversed, I’d do the same thing.
Maybe that makes me as crazy as he is. Maybe it’s just that he makes me this crazy. But knowing him like I know him now…seeing him for what he is, and loving him for that… If I was given the choice of leaving it to fate or cheating and making damn sure he was mine?
I’d choose the latter.
Every. Single. Time.
“Achilles—”
His hand slips from mine and his finger touches my lips, silencing me.
“Before you answer,” he murmurs.
He tugs away the blindfold.
For half a second, I don't know where I am. I mean I’m on a roof in the city, obviously. But—
Oh my God.
It hits me when I turn and see the roof of the Drakos estate across the street.
I know exactly where I am.
“Achilles…” I choke, tears welling in my eyes.
I’m standing where I almost ended everything.
Where I looked down at the streets forty stories below, wondering if this was my only way out.
The night Kyle did what he did, when I couldn’t go home to face my family, I came here, to the building my father had just bought. I came to this very roof and looked out over the edge and screamed my lungs out to no-one, hurling pure fury and rage at the world for putting me through all that.
I didn’t jump, obviously. I stepped back from the edge and left, and I haven’t been back since.
…Until now.
I turn to look at him, tears rolling down my face as I shake my head in horror.
“Achilles—this…this fucking place… This is where I almost ended!!” I scream.
His face is tight as he slowly shakes his head.
“No, little prey. This isn’t where you almost ended. This is where we began.”