Page 26 of Deadly Knight

“You can’t,” she finishes with a downturned, accepting expression. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’resorry?Moya dusha, what you endured…sorrywill never cut it. No word will be enough to explain how fucking apologeticIam.”

Staring at the ground, she murmurs, “I’ve spent the past few days going back and forth between what’s next.”

My fractured heart, crushed on the ground between us, stutters to life for a second, but not for any good reason. No, concern gives it the energy to beat one more time, suspecting what she’s about to say.

She stares over my shoulder, her own bowing in with her next words. “I love you, Dimitri, more than anything, and you need to know this wasn’t an easy decision. I’ve gone back and forth so much I’ve actually thrown up. When we leave Russia…” Her lips form a small O with her intake of breath. “This has to be it for you and me.”

She said it.

She fuckingsaid it.The words I feared upon seeing the realtor’s sign. The words I felt she would the moment she mentioned moving. The words that would take me to my knees if not for her house physically keeping me upright.

“I’ll travel to you. I don’t care how far.” I sound pathetic, but isn’t that what love is?

She winces. “It’s more than the distance. It’s…everything.” She sucks on the inside of her cheek, her hesitation more agonizing than just admitting her thoughts.

“Tell me.” It can’t be worse than everything else, and not knowing will kill me.

“I need to heal, Dimitri, and seeing you, through no fault of your own, brings it all back, because it was your father who did this. I’m struggling with that fact. How can I date someone whose father hates me so much he would rather see me raped? And please…don’t see this as blame. It’s probably coming out all wrong.” She shakes her head, fists coming up to press into her temples. I reach for her out of instinct, only to pull back at the last second, aware my actions will ruin rather than heal.

A gutting fact.

“It’s okay.” It’s not okay. None of this is okay, but I understand what she’s attempting to get out.Iam not to blame, but my father is, and her traumatized state isn’t able to separate us.

I’ll kill him for this.

She sighs, slowly lowering her fists. “Before grad, I was set on the path I wanted to be on. School, you, and eventually a job as a teacher, but now… Now every time I close my eyes,they’reall I see. That night haunts me so badly, and I don’t know if I can be the person I wanted to be. And I need to figure that out because if I don’t, if I succumb to the memories,theywin. They already destroyed me in one way; they can’t decide the rest of my life.”

“And you can’t do that here.” It’s a question and a statement all rolled into one, but her head shake answers it regardless.

“I don’t think so. Not while knowing the man who orchestrated it lives across town, and the four others are skulking around somewhere. When I drive by the school and gethit with the memories of what should have been a happy day, but became a horror show instead. When I pass the hospital, only to be reminded of my stay and why.” She pauses, flicking her eyes to the doorframe, where my hands are curled so tightly, I’m shocked the wood hasn’t cracked. “Even this house. When I left it the other day, I didn’t expect to come back so…sochanged. Somehow, that has erased almost two decades of happy memories. Trauma, I suppose. They made me talk to a psychologist there, and she warned me of this.” She huffs, peering up at me. “Did anyone speak to you?”

“Why would they?”

“Because you went through hell too, Dimitri. Seeing something like that—regardless of it being me or another person—it sticks with you.”

I won’t lie, because yeah, her frightened face haunts me, but it’s not trauma. Not like she’s living through.

Thankfully, she moves on. “I don’t know how long this will take, but I don’t think being in the same city it happened in is smart. I need to start fresh—new house, new city, a place where my trauma is all in my head rather than having physical manifestations around me.”

Fuck. I get it. I do, but I don’t like it.

Katya’s slipping through my grasp, and there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s like trying to hold on to a stream of water. No matter how hard I clench, the water simply wets my skin. Nothing remains in my grip, forever getting away.

“You need this too, Dimitri, even if you’re too stubborn to admit it.”

Need you to leave me? Not remotely close.

“Need what?”

“Space. Time. You need to make sense of everything. Don’t hold it in.”

Hunting those who harmed her will be my therapy. No other kind needed.