19. Giselle #2
“I don’t know, but I can promise you that I will never let anything happen to you. If you need me for anything, you call me. Nothing would break me more than losing you,” he says, his voice cracking.
“I don’t know what’s going on. Artem is .
. . ” Definitely not currently digging up my mother’s grave!
“Trying to evaluate threats, I guess? I just needed to know the truth because he won’t get off my back about my family and I wanted to prove to him that you aren’t a threat.
Plus, I’m going to confront my father whenever he comes back from wherever he’s hiding out.
He decided to take some sort of ‘vacation’ after the wedding and disappeared. ”
“You don’t need to do that, he—”
“I have decided what I want. And I’m no longer gonna let every man in my life tell me what I do or don’t need to do. If you don’t like it, then just stay in your own hiding spot.”
“It’s fine, tesoro,” he says gently as he pulls me in for a hug. “Do what you want.”
“Will you at least tell me why you and her couldn’t be together?” I ask quietly as he holds me.
He sighs, holding the sides of my arms as he pulls back.
“She was never mine to have, some of us are not lucky enough to be free to choose. I was ready to let her go, because I wanted her to have a good life, even if it wasn’t with me.
I tried to move on with Leo’s mother, but your mother just couldn’t let me go.
She was as stubborn as you,” he smiles and pats my arm, and I smile back.
It’s bittersweet when I leave his apartment.
I feel a gigantic weight off my shoulders knowing that my family is innocent, knowing that my uncle always loved me.
I was afraid that he wouldn’t feel anything, but I was wrong to think that.
My memories of him were always of how gentle he was, how he never raised his voice.
I’m sure my mother loved that about him.
I wonder if I would be a better person if I had a man like that to guide me instead of my own father.
When I walk back into the house, I throw my bag down with a relieved sigh. I walk myself over to the den, and when I enter Artem immediately stands from the couch and walks over to me.
“Your phone is off,” he says, and I roll my eyes.
“Your men drove me there and back, so I’m sure they answered.”
He clicks his tongue and pulls me in against him. “Hey! Let go of me, what are you doing?” I exclaim as I struggle against him and he doesn’t even flinch.
“Never do that again, solnishko. I needed to be sure.”
Ugh.
Whatever, he’s just being annoying. He can’t stand when his chess pieces go rogue, so he was waiting for me to come back to tell me to get back into my place.
“Didn’t I say earlier that it was enough touching for a lifetime?” I remind him, and all it does is bring me back to that moment. Then, all the memories of it flood back.
I had tried to forget that they were desecrating my mother’s gravesite all night, but now the anxiety of that has come rushing back. I had been on such a high from getting my closure from Uncle Rob that I had forgotten that it wasn’t the biggest problem we were facing.
He pulls back, and part of me feels disappointed when his familiar scent is no longer wrapped around me. Since fucking when have I found so much comfort in him?
“You seem okay, it must have gone how you hoped.”
“Well, he definitely had nothing to do with her murder. He didn’t have any information, though.
But, I . . . feel better. I guess.” I admit it reluctantly, not wanting to fully open up with him still.
Each day that goes by, I’m more and more anxious by the connection we have growing.
I’ve gotten to a point where if I was without him, I would feel alone.
Without his stupid brothers, I’d be alone.
“Good, then you’re prepared for my news.”
I nod, sighing and walking over to go sit at a barstool. He takes that as a hint and pours me a glass of that rum he had bought for me, and a glass of vodka for himself.
“It was as if she was assassinated, but not by someone who has ever used a long-range rifle before. They . . . missed at first. And that is a very important detail.”
I take a breath, trying to not internalize the details of it. “So, that eliminates the idea of a hit, right?”
He bobs his head to the side as if to shrug before downing his glass. “It could still have been planned, but maybe it was more personal. I know you won’t like what we all think.”
I roll my eyes and down my glass to try to relax, taking a moment before I freak out. “I am so tired of you all pointing fingers at my family. You seriously think Leo would kill my mother? Plus, if he did, my uncle would never have forgiven him. He’s fucked up over her death, Artem.”
“I get it, but there is no other theory here. Unless you want to explore the possibility that it was your father, no one else has a motive.”
“Seriously? He was home with me, Artem. Can you guys get real? It could’ve been some nobody who wanted to hurt my father by killing her. Maybe they mistook my uncle for him.”
He’s quiet for a moment as he considers it, looking up. “Maybe. But not many people hate your family.”
“Well, Leo is shitty but he doesn’t hate us. Like I said, it isn’t possible. I thought the whole point of you guys taking her to a pathologist was to get real information?”
“And we did, solnishko, it has been twelve years, it isn’t as if there can be any more information than what he got. We needed to know about the conditions to move forward before we accused anyone and handled them.”
“Handled them? What, you’re going to fucking kill Leo?”
“If I must, yes. I will kill anyone I have to, even your brother, your father, your best friend, and I couldn’t give less of a fuck if that would make you hate me even more than you do now, because you must be alive to hate me, solnishko, and that is all I concern myself with.”
“You think I would let you kill my family?” I yell out, appalled by his audacity to say that shit like it’s casual.
“The reason you aren’t the head, is because you aren’t able to make these decisions.
You rely too much on your emotions. It’s simple, Giselle; you either kill or be killed in this kind of life, and I will gladly be your weapon.
You do not need to yield me for me to kill for you, you only need to stay how you are. ”
“And how am I, Artem?” I ask as I move close, getting in his face, ready for whatever new fucking insult he has to throw at me to bring me down now.
“You, are here, exactly how I need you. Breathing, screaming at me, full of fire. All I ask is that once I prove I’m worthy of being the gun in your hands that you will never stop being like this. Never stop being the beacon that calls to me when it all dims out, because it always fucking will.”
“You . . . you’ve fucking really lost it this time, haven’t you? Are you saying this because we finally fucked this morning?” I say, not as loud this time because I’m shocked by his outburst. What kind of ridiculous poetic shit was that?
“That was inevitable, I only sped up the timeline to ease your nerves.”
“To ease my nerves? You’re going to pretend that you did that for me?”
“If it was for me, I would have fucked you the way I’ve been craving the last nine years, solnishko. I only did that for you.”
I can’t help the thrill that rolls through me at his words, but I keep my arms crossed and raise my nose. “Well, don’t do anything ‘for me’ again. I didn’t ask for it.”
“Fine, this time, I’ll do it for me.”