Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 62994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62994 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
“I know,” I tell her desperately.
“We keep doing this,” she whispers. “Falling into each other and pretending everything else doesn’t exist. There’s so much we have to figure out.”
“Tell me what you need,” I say.
She exhales shakily and sits back a little, though not far. “I want to keep working with Anya. That part feels clear.” Her fingers twist together in her lap. “And I trust you in some ways. I do. But I’m afraid of what’s outside these walls. And after all this time, there’s still so much I don’t know about you. I don’t know who you are, not really.”
Her voice cracks at the last word. I shift closer, hands resting on my knees so she doesn’t feel cornered.
“If you want the truth,” I say quietly, “I can give you that.”
She lifts her eyes and nods once. Brave. Scared. Determined. So I tell her.
“My mother left when I was still little. I barely even remember her. From what I was told, there was no warning and no goodbye. She just walked out one day on my father, my brother, and me and never looked back.”
Molly inhales sharply, like the thought physically hurts her.
“My father was the pakhan before me,” I continue. “And he was good at the job, but he loved vodka more than he loved anything else. Including us. Including himself.”
Her face softens with heartbreak I don’t deserve.
“My older brother, Pavel, was supposed to take over someday. Everyone knew it. He was smart and wickedly cunning. He was stronger than I ever was, and definitely stronger than our father. He had a lot of ideas to improve the Bratva.” I smile faintly at the thought, though it’s barely a memory now. “He would have been a great leader.”
“What happened?” she whispers.
“A drunk driver, ironically,” I say simply. “Some kid who didn’t know his own limits. Pavel was only twenty.”
Molly covers her mouth like she’s trying to keep the grief inside.
“So after that,” I continue, “it fell to me. A seventeen-year-old kid with no one to guide him and a drunk father who barely remembered his own name. And with Pavel gone, his drinking only got worse. He didn’t give me any guidance on how to do this job, and he left me with a lot of shit to clean up.”
Her eyes shine again, but she doesn’t look away. “You didn’t have a choice,” she whispers.
“No.” I shake my head. “But I made one anyway. I took it seriously. I still do. Because if I don’t stay ten steps ahead, if I don’t control every moving part around me, people die.”
Her breath trembles. She looks down and rubs her palms together slowly, like she’s absorbing all of it.
“And fatherhood…” My voice trails off because the truth is heavy in my throat. “I want to do it right. Better than the people who raised me. Better than the world I grew up in.”
Her gaze lifts. Soft. Searching.
“I know I can’t give you a simple life,” I say. “I know I can’t protect you from every danger. But I will give you everything I have. Everything I am.”
Silence fills the space between us. For once, it isn’t cold or tense. It gives us both the space to breathe after I’ve laid this all out on the table. She swallows, her lips parting like she’s choosing her next breath carefully.
“Neither of us knows what it means to be truly loved,” she finally says softly, like she didn’t mean to say it. “And maybe we don’t even know how to love.”
I reach out and take her hand carefully, showing her that she can pull away if she wants to. She doesn’t.
“And somehow I still find myself falling for you more every day.”
Her fingers curl around mine as her words land. I look up at her to see her watching me seriously, carefully, with a faint smile on her lips. I lift her hand to my lips, kiss her knuckles once, slow, deliberate.
“You have no idea,” I say softly, “what that means to me.”
She looks like she wants to cry again, but she doesn’t. She just leans closer, resting her forehead lightly against my chest. I wrap an arm around her shoulders.
We sit like that for a long time. Her breath steadies as my hand rubs a slow line along her back, the tension between us shifting into something fragile and warm. She’s the first to speak.
“I don’t know how this ends,” she whispers. “And I still have a lot of fears and concerns. But I’m not ready to give up.”
“Neither am I,” I admit.
20
MOLLY
Things shift so quickly between Samuil and me that it makes my head spin. Our one talk turns into so many other talks. Days go by, and my favorite part of each day, after making progress with Anya, is when he gets home.