Page 95 of Deadly Knight

“Oh my god,” she breathes. “It’s like nothing’s changed.”

Because it hasn’t.

I exit my side of the car and go around to hers to help her out. She allows me to take her hand and lead her up the skinny path, a trip we’ve taken many times before, so I call it a win. We once walked this same route many times as stupid kids who believed happily-ever-after was more than a fictional concept recited in fairy tales.

“Dimitri, we shouldn’t be here. The owners will think we’re breaking in.”

Ignoring her, I continue up the stone steps—the very ones stained with remnants of my shattered heart. Standing beside those very remnants, I rifle for my keys, choosing the ones for this house, and stick it inside the lock.

“You’re the current owner?”

I open the door, stepping inside when I sense she won’t make the first move. “I’ve owned it since your parents sold it.”

“You were the buyer who paid over asking.” It’s not a question, but a realization.

“Da.”I reach for her, tugging her inside, and she all but trips over the threshold with her unwillingness.

She steps by me, slowly spinning in a circle as her eyes devour the empty house. In that second, a memory of when she first brought me here slips into place. She was wearing a pink dress, and when she spun to point out various things, her dark hair flared around her, and her dress picked up at the knees.

I blink, and we’re back in the present. No pink dress. No joyful expression. Just one of sadness and surprise, heartbreak and trauma.

“I couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t allow anyone else to move into the place you were born in. Your entire life was spent here.”

She flinches, turning away, her hair a wall between us—as thick as the one around her heart. She says nothing as she continues through the sparse house, and I stay at a safe distance a few feet behind. She heads down the hallway until reaching thestaircase, her hand cupping the banister for a long second before ascending.

At the top, she peeks into the room that was once her parents’, then the bathroom, and then down the hall towards her old one. She remains a few feet away from the doorway and turns to me.

“So you, what—own it? You don’t furnish it? Rent it out?”

“Have strangers live in your home? Never. That’d defeat the purpose of me buying it.”

“It’s not my home anymore. That was the idea behind selling it.”

“I bought it because I wanted to.” I shove my hands into my pockets, needing them hidden before accidentally doing something I shouldn’t, like reaching for her. “It’s sat empty since you moved out. A cleaning crew comes through every couple months to dust and mop, air it out, and keep the place from growing stale and dirty.”

Her eyes bounce around the walls that once were decorated with family portraits, and the layout she spent years running throughout. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say nothing. I brought you here so you can see that what you ran away from is still waiting.”Your home. Me.

She finally walks through the entrance of her old bedroom. “I neverran. And this place being available means nothing.”

Her eyes flicker with fear, uncertainty, and a look I recognize from years of stalking her—the bravado of her lie. It thrills me, encourages me to back her into the nearest wall—literally and metaphorically, consequences be damned.

At this point, I’ve laid it all out for her. My father is imprisoned, the scum who raped her are all dead and long gone, she has her house if she wants it…

She has me.

The choice is hers.

“You’re lying to yourself.”

Her chin lifts, her body becoming rigid as I take a step in her direction. “Your father was right, as much as it pains me to admit. And before you blame him, no, he didn’t put these thoughts in my head. Ten years ago, I left, not only because of what happened tous, but because ofwhyit did. Your father may have wanted us apart, but it was only so you could take your rightful place in the Bratva. A place that, as much as you deny it, was always yours to claim. If not him, at some point between graduation and this present moment, the organization would have split us up, and you know it.”

They would have made it complicated, but they wouldn’t have ended us. I wouldn’t have allowed it.

“You’re making excuses; what-ifs you have no way of proving. Theories that’ll never come to pass.”

She angles away from me. “Back then, I thought I was okay with you being in the mob, but I was a kid, Dimitri. We both were! We had no idea what the consequences of loving one another would be. Like it or not, we existed in two different worlds…and we continue to. I, I…I can’t handle this, and you need someone who can. A woman who’s from a family like yours, who knows what to expect.”