Page 14 of Deadly Knight (The Bratva’s Elite #2)

Watching Dimitri walk away hurts more than what those men did to me.

What’s worse is I’m at fault this time. Graduation night was the catalyst, but I’m the one who got tangled in the web, and I believe the only way out is to run.

To break through the barriers and pray for a chance of coming out the other side, even if that other side is in a new place.

A place where the past can remain in the past.

This time, there’s no one to blame for my actions. Ivan Volkov and his hired pack, perhaps, but if I were a stronger girl, his malice would be nothing worse than an annoying fly on the wall. If I were good enough to stand beside Dimitri, I could be right alongside him when he targets his father.

But I’m not. Instead, I’m running. It’s safer.

I barely remember to shut the door before the emotionless state I’ve been masking myself in shatters and my sobs echo through the house.

I shatter, and between breaths, I end up on the floor, screaming into the entranceway carpet after twenty minutes of appearing empty and resolute.

Because if my emotions were witnessed by him, I would have cracked on the front step.

I needed to put up a front, which just about killed me.

Appearing uncaring… He didn’t deserve it.

My hand instinctively goes for my wrist, bare for the first time in years. From the beginning, the ribbon added very little weight and became unnoticeable after a few days. Now, my limb feels too light—wrong—missing what’s become crucial to me.

Heart, mind, body, and soul, I love Dimitri…but sometimes love isn’t enough. The final thing the therapist recommended before my discharge is to think about what I , no one else, needs to mend, and remaining in Moscow isn’t it.

If I were better, if I chose to remain by his side, it’d only be a matter of time before Ivan came for me again. The more we resist, the harder his attacks will become, and it’s not only my life I’ve been considering.

My parents, for one, might get dragged into it, used against me—and thus Dimitri.

And what happens when Dimitri is directly caught in the crossfire? When he loses his life trying to save me? I’m not worth that.

What happens when Dimitri isn’t the soldier his family wants him to be? When keeping me by his side means never reaching his full potential for the Bratva. I’m not worth that.

This way, he’s safe. From me, from his father.

This way, I’m safe. From him, from his father.

I’d finally come to the decision over a day ago, but couldn’t see him until I was physically able to leave bed. Every attempt was met with a wave of nausea. The very thought of what I was planning to do made me sick, and now that it’s over and I’ve done it, I feel…broken.

It’s not fair. It’s not how any of this should be.

Mama rushes from the kitchen and lands on her knees beside me, wrapping me into her comforting hold. She rocks me, murmuring calming things I barely hear over my crying.

My parents have done so much for me this week.

I think a part of them is satisfied I’ve made the decision to chase old dreams in North America, but they’ve been good at sympathizing with the decisions I had to make before doing so too, going as far as to decide to move with me, knowing I’d want the support.

Last night, they decided to sell rather than keep the house, because they’ll need the money to buy another in Canada. This morning, they met with a realtor who understood our rush. She took a few photos with plans to return later for professional ones and stuck her sign in our front lawn.

This is the only home I’ve known. The only home they’ve known, and besides the heartbreak from the conversation I just had, guilt gnaws at my inside. They reassure me it’ll be a fresh start for us all, but I’m stealing them away from their own happiness.

Mama continues rocking and speaking, but I can’t hear her. At some point, Papa appears, only to slip out the door beside us.

Time passes, fleetingly, until I manage to lift my head from her chest.

“It hurts.”

“I know, dorogoy , I know.”

“I wish I never met him.”

“No, you don’t.” She tightens her hold while shifting to stand, bringing me up with her. “It feels like that now because you’re grieving, but you’ll soon understand how good that boy was for you.”

If only she knew who he truly is, then she wouldn’t think that.

Mama urges me away from the door and into the living room. “Sit. I’ll get you tea.”

I drop onto our couch, aware of the large window behind me. The blinds are drawn, which I’m thankful for, but the prickle of awareness tingling up my spine reminds me who’s on the other side. It’d be easy to part the blinds and watch him get into his car, but then I’d have to witness him leaving.

You left him first.

Mama’s wrong for claiming I’ll never regret meeting Dimitri.

I already do, but not for the reasons I should.

Not because of the danger surrounding his family, but because of this moment.

This agony. If I never met him, I wouldn’t have experienced losing my heart, the emptiness is a hollow sensation that feels like I’m burning from the inside out.

Dimitri and I began on different paths. Ours might have intersected for a while, but in the end, we were always headed in opposite directions.

Starting from the day I first saw him.

“Oh, der’mo , it’s true.”

“What is?” I follow Andrei’s gaze towards the opposite side of the courtyard, where he’s staring at a bunch of guys. I don’t recognize any of them from my boyfriend’s usual friend group. “Them?”

Andrei, my boyfriend for the past month, jerks his chin. “See the one in the centre, leaning on the wall?”

See him? How could I not ? He may be surrounded by others, but he’s a beacon for attention—and not only mine. Most of the people lingering until the final seconds before the bell chimes are watching him.

He’s leaning against the school’s exterior wall, one foot propped on the brick and one hand shoved into the front pocket of his jeans.

The other scrolls mindlessly on his phone, seemingly not paying attention to the noise around him.

Hair as dark as the night hangs in front of his eyes, which I grow instantly annoyed by because I want to see him better.

To see if his eyes are as piercing as the rest of him.

From here, he exudes an energy no one else does. One that calls those around him to him while warning others away.

Danger.

I shiver, my cheeks flushing hotter as I recall my boyfriend beside me and the fact I’ve been checking out another guy. “Da,” I finally answer his question. “Is he new?” He has to be. No way in hell I wouldn’t recognize him.

Andrei nods. “Heard a rumour he’d be starting soon. Guess it’s true.”

“Who is he?”

“Dimitri Volkov. Hails from some rich family. Guess he got tired of his private school.”

With Andrei’s statement, the opulence exuding from him becomes obvious. It’s in his dark-wash jeans and rolled-up cuffs of his black button-down. Everything’s black. His hair, his clothes. I imagine his eyes are dark too.

The warning bell chimes, signalling it’s time to head inside. The crowd begins dissipating, even the people surrounding the new guy. He’s the only one who remains.

Andrei grabs my hand and tugs me towards the doors. Right before we join the crowd and I lose sight of Dimitri, dark eyes flit from his phone and land straight on me.

The memory makes me shiver. From the beginning, I recognized the danger in him.

He radiated it in his actions, his mannerisms, conversations, and even his clothing.

He held himself a certain way. Talked to others a certain way.

It suggested he was familiar with power, which everyone assumed came from his rich family.

I eventually learned all the other reasons. I also got to see the Dimitri he projected was not the real person. No, the true Dimitri was so much better.

After first seeing him across the courtyard, I spent the week seeking him out in the hallways. The day I formally met Dimitri was when learning, while he may look dangerous, he wasn’t the one to fear.

The party’s winding down, but Andrei insists on remaining longer.

The time on my phone ticks closer to curfew, making me anxious.

I’ll be late if we don’t leave soon, and then I’ll get grounded.

Whenever I mention this to Andrei, he ignores me and continues drinking with the group he decided we’re hanging out with.

He’s six beers in and his gaze is glassy, but he’s my only option. The party’s at a classmate’s house way out in the countryside, and Andrei drove us here. To go home on my own means a few hours’ long walk beside a dead highway in the pitch-dark—or calling my parents.

I shift on his lap, and his arm tightens around my waist to keep me immobile.

All night, he’s been forcing me by his side and glaring at anyone who’s looked twice at me.

Being held by him is getting annoying. Other couples seem to enjoy one another’s touches, but Andrei’s causes my stomach to curl.

Not only today either, but every day. As our relationship goes on, more and more of him bothers me.

All night, when I’ve tried to stand, he’s forced me onto his lap. Even when I lied and claimed I needed the bathroom, he trailed me there and back, scowling the entire way as though my bladder was ruining his night.

I shift again, telling him with my body how done I am. When that doesn’t work, I lean into his chest to appeal to another side of him, playfully tracing the lip of the beer bottle.

“C’mon, let’s go.”

Andrei scowls. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

I lower my voice so the other guys don’t overhear me pleading. “I need to get home.”

With a heavy sigh more worthy of if I asked him to cut off an arm, he drags his attention away from the guys to me. For a moment, I see a flicker of the good guy I met a month ago, the one who asked me out to a movie. But then, he’s gone again with a blank expression, his arm loosening its hold.

“Then go. Don’t want to be with me? Leave.”

If this is his way of breaking up with me, so be it. Not being upset by this reaffirms we’re not right together.

The only problem now is the long walk I’m about to undergo to get home. I suppose I could phone Papa and hope he’s okay with coming for me…

Andrei shoves me roughly, and I barely stumble upright, tripping over his feet as I do, which makes my entire escape a whole mess of limbs.

A large body comes up on my other side, and my first thought is that one of our audience members has decided to join in on Andrei’s cruelty. A quick scan shows no one’s moved, though, their glazed expressions rapt on the drama unfolding in front of them.

A hand bands around my upper arm, the other hot on my waist. Whoever the newcomer is, he’s like a massive wall erected behind me; a shadow that consumes my own as he glares down at Andrei.

I tip my head to check who it is, only for my eyes to clash with the stormy ones of Dimitri Volkov. Wordlessly, he glances from me to Andrei, his expression growing colder.

“You lay a hand on her again, you lose it. That’s a promise, not a threat.”

Then he hauls me away before I’ve fully processed his words. Once away from the group, he swings me to a stop, pressing me against the neatest wall. His hands abandon my body, but I’ll forever feel the heat of his touch.

“You okay? I saw what that zasranets did.” Asshole.

“D-da.” I smooth stray strands of hair away from my face. “Thanks.”

He smiles crookedly, which ignites a small flame in my stomach; one that Andrei’s spent the entire night slowly extinguishing. It’s followed by a tip of his head and a hand held up, an offer for me to take or leave.

“Come on. I’ll drive you home if you’d like.”

I lay my hand in his.

The night began with him saving me, and the drive home wasn’t as nerve-wracking as I assumed it’d be. Even from the beginning, being with him was natural. Once we left the party, he changed from the guy everyone else saw and showed me a gentler, less intense side.

The first day of school after the party, he showed up at my house to drive me there.

We began as a casual friendship. A drive to school and back.

A shared table in the library during study time.

Moving his seat to be beside me in the single class we shared that semester.

Little things that brought us closer together.

It’s the memories of those little things that hurt the most.

Dear Diary,

I did it.

I hate myself.

I miss him.

I had to.

I only hope I won’t regret giving him up…