Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90084 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90084 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
“That’s good. I don’t want to risk you.”
“I was safe.” I touch his cheek, considering. “But I have an idea about him.”
His expression darkens, which I didn’t expect. Normally, he’s all about listening to what I have to say, but right now he doesn’t look like he’s interested.
“Actually, I need to tell you something first. I should have told you the moment I came home, but you looked so fucking good—”
“It’s okay. I basically jumped your bones and begged for it.”
He smiles, and it’s surprisingly sad. “Yes, you did, and that’s what I love about you.”
An excited shiver runs down into my toes. They curl, and I curl closer to him. “What do you need to tell me?”
He pulls away and leans against the headboard. I hesitate, then start pulling on my clothes, feeling weirdly exposed without his arms around me. He watches, not commenting, until I’m in sweats and a sweatshirt, and sitting cross-legged at his side.
“Your mother was engaged to my father,” he says.
And I think he’s joking at first. I smile at him, confused, but he’s not smiling back. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Before she left Baltimore. My family and your family were creating an alliance, and part of that was a marriage. The night my father met your mother for the first time, he beat her. It was apparently vicious enough that Aram decided he had to do something about it, which is why the Armenians killed my father. And it’s also why your mother left Baltimore. She ran from the Brotherhood with your father to make sure that she was never put in such a terrible position again. I’m sorry, I really am. I never knew before today.”
I feel like everything’s been twisted around. None of it makes sense, but as I run his story through my head, some things begin to click into place.
There’s my mother begging me not to be with Valentin. She was so convinced he was evil and dangerous, and I had just assumed that was because he was Bratva and organized crime. But now I realize it was personal.
She had first-hand experience.
“I always wondered why she left Baltimore. I mean, what really made them run away.” I wrap my arms around myself, hugging tight. “She said it was because she wanted to escape her family. Now I get why.”
“I’m sorry. I would have told you sooner, but I never knew. My father… he was not a good man.” Valentin’s face is twisted into pain. “If you despise me, I understand. I wouldn’t blame you.”
I sit up straight, surprised by that. “Why would I despise you?”
“My father abused your mother. He drove her from her own family.”
“No, my mother left her family because they tried to force her into a marriage she didn’t want. None of that is your fault, either way.”
“I understand that, but even still. That man was my father, and I’m still fighting a war that he started.”
I breathe deep and slowly blow it out.
All this happened because of what our parents did. His father hit my mother, and my uncle killed his father in return. Now Valentin’s continuing that legacy, trying to kill my uncle, while kidnapping my cousin, and basically burning everything to pieces around me.
I still don’t blame him. I can see how we ended up here, and none of this is his fault. It’s the sins of our parents forced onto us, and now we’re struggling to get out from underneath a trauma that was never meant to be ours to begin with.
We can keep going down that path. We can struggle, spit, scream, kill, and become like our parents.
Or we can do something different.
I lean forward and touch him. He stares at me, face softening. I lean in and kiss him gently. “You’re not your father, and you’re not responsible for what he did.”
“Thank you, malishka.”
“I mean it. We can be better, right?”
“I don’t know that we can.” He pulls me into his arms again. I lean my head against his chest, listening to his heart beat. It kills me that he thinks we’re trapped like this, when I feel like there has to be another way.
“Arsen hates Aram, maybe as much as we do.” I tilt my chin up toward him. “What if we use that? To end the war and move on with our lives?”
His eyebrows knit together. “How would that help?”
“I don’t know. Offer him something. Make him feel like he’s got purpose. I don’t know. There’s just got to be a way.”
Valentin lapses into silence. I hate when my big, gorgeous husband broods like this. The last thing I want in the world is for him to suffer. But we’re dangling over the edge, and this war can turn into a slaughter, or we can create a new path forward and find a way to avoid more killing and another generation of hate and revenge.