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“Shouldn’t I get a say in what’s best for me?” she asks with a hint of challenge.
I turn to face her, and the pain in her expression nearly breaks my resolve. “Not in this case.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t understand what you’d be choosing. You don’t understand what my life is like, or what it would mean to be part of it.”
She stands and moves closer, and I have to fight the urge to back away. “Then explain it to me.”
“Some things are better left unexplained.”
She looks angry and frustrated now. “That’s not your choice to make.”
I nod, resolved. “Yes, it is, because I’m the one who brought you into this mess, and I’m the one who’s going to get you out of it.”
A soft knock at the door interrupts whatever she was going to say next. Viktor enters with the kind of professional neutrality that suggests Maksim briefed him on the situation. He nods respectfully. “The SUV’s ready when you are, miss.”
She looks at me one more time, and I see everything she wants to say painted across her face. There are questions about why this has to end so abruptly, arguments about what we could be if we tried, and pleas for more time to figure out what we mean to each other. I brace myself to counter it all, but she doesn’t say any of those things.
Instead, she walks toward Viktor with the kind of dignity that makes my chest ache and stops at the threshold but doesn’t turn around.
I call out before I can stop myself. “Sabrina.”
She freezes but doesn’t look back.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for all of it.”
She speaks without turning, her voice quiet but steady. “No, you’re not. You’re sorry it has to end this way, but you’re not sorry it happened. Neither am I.”
Then she’s gone, following Viktor down the hallway toward whatever life waits for her beyond these walls. I stand at the window and watch the car disappear into the forest, carrying away the woman who turned my world upside down in the space of four days.
The absence hits me like a wound.
Maksim appears beside me several minutes later, silent for a long moment before he speaks. “At least it’s over.”
I don’t answer because it’s not over. It will never be over. She’s under my skin now, burned into my memory, and no amount of distance or time is going to change that, but she’s safe, and she’s free, and that has to be enough to satisfy me after what I did to her.
Even if it feels like I’m dying.
9
Sabrina
It’s been ten weeks since Viktor drove me home through winding mountain roads, when I walked back into my apartment and tried to pretend that four days of my life hadn’t been erased and rewritten.
I gave Jessie a lame excuse about meeting a man, making a foolish choice, and it not working out. She accepted it with the kind of gentle understanding that reminded me why we’ve been friends since college, though I catch her watching me sometimes with questions she doesn’t ask.
Tonight, the club feels smaller than usual, the air thick with sweat and tequila and the cloying sweetness of whatever fruity cocktail is the special of the week. The bass from the sound system pounds through the floor and into my bones, and something in my stomach flips violently.
I press my hand to my mouth and rush toward the back hallway, barely making it to the mop sink before my dinner comes backup. The retching is violent and exhausting, leaving me shaky and pale as I grip the edge of the industrial sink.
“Brina?” Jessie’s voice cuts through the sound of running water as I splash cold liquid on my face. “You okay?”
I straighten slowly, my legs unsteady. “Fine. Just something I ate.”
She crosses her arms and leans against the doorframe. “You’ve been ‘fine’ for two weeks now. This is the fourth time I’ve found you throwing up.”
“It’s probably just a bug.”