Page 106 of Deadly Knight

“Why?” Anastasia demands. “What the hell’s happening?”

I keep my gaze trained on Vanessa as I answer them. “For Katya. She’s scared that being in the organization will bring danger. I need her to see that I’ll doanythingfor her. Even this.”

Vanessa staggers, her mouth slipping open. “Of course, why did I not see it? She found me in the kitchen on her last night here. Started asking about your role; how much you like it, what you do. I never considered…”

The next morning she left. Her conversation with Vanessa had solidified her own rationalizations.

“It’s fine.” I step away from the long table, brushing my hand along the wood filled with so much history from Pakhans and Elite members from long ago.

Vanessa stops me with a hand slamming down onto the same table. “I refuse. I’ll send you on a job to Canada. A liaison between us and the Corsettis, if I must. Anything else to tell the soldiers about your extended absence…but not this. I refuse to lose you. I’ll kill myself before I take your life, and I won’t see you branded as a traitor and prevented from returning home.”

“There is no choice.” I slide my weapon back to her. “I want out and you can’t stop me. Kill me or don’t; brand me or don’t, it doesn’t change the fact that by tomorrow, I’ll be on a flight back to Canada, this time not as a Bratva member. For Katya, I’m done. She once gave up her life to be safe, so I’ll do the same.” I pause, glancing between my two family members, heart panging at the one missing. “Say goodbye to Lev for me, and tell him thanks for his help.” Another step, another pause before I say my final words. “I’ll return home if Katya does. But I’ve taken so many of her options away, this time, I’m the one making the difficult choice.”

I turn and walk out of the room, feeling the weight of centuries of disapproval settling on my shoulders.

“How do you feel this week?”Ava asks, crossing one leg over the other.

Pre-Russia, pre-Dimitri, I’d been going to counselling on a bi-weekly basis, long ready to shift to monthly appointments. Ava recommended it, and I knew deep down I’d be fine cutting back, but never made the jump. Call it nerves, call it whatever, I clung to my safety net.

“You continue therapy because you’re scared of what it’ll mean not having someone to catch you if you fall.”

Is that all Ava’s been for me? A lifeline who catches me at every little fall? As a therapist myself, I should have the answer to those questions, but as the client, I’m blinded to my own needs.

Either way, since returning from Russia, I’ve increased my sessions to weekly, going the complete opposite way from where I should be.

“Katya?” Ava prompts, shattering my thoughts.

“Honestly…depressed.”Still.I sink into the blue couch, crossing my arms to make myself as small as possible. “Almostevery day I ask myself ‘what if?’ What if I stayed? What if I gave it a shot? Was he right? Do I run away from everything? He thinks I’m strong enough to handle life by his side, and what if he’s right?”

“And what answers have you come up with?”

“None that make any sense. Sometimes, like last night, I stay up late driving myself insane coming up with various answers and outcomes. It makes my head hurt.”

She makes a noise and folds her hands over the pen on her lap. “I’d like to discuss your point about being strong enough and dissect how you feel about it. You’re wondering if you are strong enough, but define what ‘strong enough’ means.”

Um.My mouth opens but no sounds come out.

She stares.

I stare.

She waits.

I sweat.

The use of silence is a therapy trick meant to grant the client the space to think and reply in their own time.

And it always fucking works.

“I don’t know. My mental wall fell. Without it, I don’t think I could stay with a mobster.”

She hums, jotting a few things down. “There’s something in that statement I’d like to return to later, but let’s talk about that mental wall again. It’s not the first time we’ve talked about this since you’ve returned, but when it fell, did you fall as well?”

“Well. No.” I don’t think so.

“From what you’ve mentioned, it sounds like you’ve held firm in your decisions.”

“Yeah…”