Page 30 of Heartfelt Pain (Ruling Love #3)

“Cliff got suspicious about my appearances before you ever did. He ended up going to my dad. It’s not wise to threaten Lev Zimin, but Cliff had balls.

He offered him a deal. He hated you anyway.

So Dad moved the goalpost. I wasn’t supposed to just bring you in closer and silently influence you until we got better deals and as much intel as we wanted.

“Dad and Cliff considered you the girl from the Midwest. They didn’t think you could hack it.

They wanted me to break your heart so fucking bad, you’d run back home crying.

Cliff would be Dad’s man, though, the point would be that nobody would know.

That’s direct influence. A made man. A better deal than the persuasion I’d have over you because of your love for me. ”

“So you had to break my heart,” I whisper. He did, but not because of some well-executed fake breakup. I found out the truth before that could happen.

“I don’t know how you figured it out.” After a minute, he understands I’m not going to answer him.

“My mom found me at one point. In the bathroom off the kitchen. I’d been puking.

I’d never been so disgusted with myself before.

You know Mom. How she can just look at you.

So when she found me and stared at me while I was on my hands and knees by the toilet, of course I thought I’d rather just have a knife to the chest.”

His words bring a sensation to my chest. The memory of said knife.

“You want to know the most ironic thing out of it all? Dad said I’d disappointed him.”

If my chest weren’t already tight I think I’d feel anger on behalf of Roma. I never expected to take on that emotion for him, rather than blasting him with my own fury .

“I’d fucked up the plan somehow because you’d figured it out.

And of course everyone was pissed. You don’t fuck with Fujimori’s and Aunt Macy’s operation is a byproduct of the place.

He and Dima were fielding calls left and right.

Mom kept looking at me strangely and Max got annoyed too because I’d fucked up.

And of course, Elijah takes that moment to come back home because in his own words ‘He’d be my shoulder to cry on during this hard time’.

I stopped answering my phone. Max and Elijah broke into my apartment after a week. ”

No one came to check on me.

Roma plays with my hair again. “A week later we heard you’d killed Cliff.”

I know without having to look he’s wearing a puppy dog expression. Guilt because he thinks his choices spurred me into doing something that chipped away at my soul.

“See we all thought you’d still leave. No one could find you. Cliff started taking on clients. I knew you wouldn’t take my phone calls, but everyone else said the same thing. You weren’t picking up your phone. I thought maybe you’d gone home.”

People go missing all the time in our world. Did he really think I’d just packed my bags and left?

“Dad said since you’d gone off, there’d be no need to send anyone after you.” His hand stops moving. The lie his father told is blatantly obvious. I truly think he’s just starting to figure it out. Or at least finally examine a truth he hasn’t let himself look at before.

“I swear he meant it.” There’s urgency in his voice. Desperation.

I swallow a thick lump. “It doesn’t matter if he did or not.” My muscles are tight and I hug my knees so close to my chest.

It takes a second to untangle myself and turn. Roma scoots back almost like he’s not sure how to react to the eye contact.

My throat is dry but I force my tongue to move. “I didn’t put a bullet through Cliff’s head just because I was pissed he’d gone behind my back and worked with your dad.”

Roma’s face is pale in the moonlight. His Adam’s apple bobs as I speak. I’ve seen this man kill people. He took several down when Leopold kidnapped Lennie. But despite Roma’s darkness, there are giant gaping holes of innocence that often shine bright. It’s where all the puppy dog eyes come from.

“Cliff wanted me dead,” I tell Roma. “He put out a hit on me.”

My good hand reaches out, smoothing Roma’s brow. His muscles tense, shaking anyway.

“Nancy Mulligan told me,” I explain. The triggerman smoked as much as Aunt Macy.

If you met her on the street you’d hardly believe the stocky, gray-haired woman could pull a trigger faster than anyone else.

“She and a few others liked how I did business. How I treated everyone. She took me aside and told me that Cliff had asked one of her contacts to take me out. But the guy had called Nancy and that’s how I found out. ”

She’d taken a long drag of a cigarette as I stood there reeling. I tried to process life as I knew it imploding. Then she’d handed me a cigarette and we sat there silently smoking.

“I killed Cliff.” My thumb smooths over his eyebrow. “It was me or him.”

Roma grabs my hand, pulling it to his heart.

“The other day I made it out like you’d made me kill my cousin.” Those first few years after it all played out I’d lay in bed thinking a part of my soul had shriveled.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world and Cliff hadn’t given me a chance to move back home. He wanted me gone for good. Me or him.

I chose me.

Cliff had a meeting at Fujimori’s. One I’d originally arranged and he’d taken over when he thought I’d fallen to the floor, heartbroken to learn the truth about Roma.

I went through the front door, my stilettos echoing on the black and white vinyl flooring.

I took out a gun. The ironic thing was Roma had been the first to take me to a gun range.

Though, it was Nancy’s voice that floated through my mind at that moment.

Men kill so they can take what they want. Women kill to survive.

Cliff smirked when he saw me. Laughed slightly as he found my arrival amusing. I met his eyes when I shot him. A token of respect by any triggerman’s regard.

I stepped over his body, dropped into my usual seat, and conducted business with the Italians. Later I helped Jane get rid of the body. I cleaned up the blood because it wasn’t fair to her.

If I thought she would judge me I was wrong. Women know monsters. And they’re very rarely sad to see them go.

“How do you want this to go?” I ask him in the dark. “You. Me. Us.”

“Us,” he whispers, his thumb running up my arm.

“But how?” I ask. “We were kids sitting in a booth eating ramen. It’s not even about the work.

About my job or what you end up doing with your life.

How do we move forward? Do I avoid your dad at all major holidays?

Do you apologize for breaking my heart every day?

Do we act like nothing happened because we’re stupidly?—”

“In love,” he interrupts.

My body itches, my skin erupting in heat. I try to take my hand back.

He doesn’t let go. “We love one another.”

“We are terrible together.”

“We’re only terrible when my dad’s involved. ”

“He’s your dad.” I know Roma stepped back from his family after the debacle. He avoids his parent's phone calls and Max and Elijah have well surpassed him in the business. His job is secured due to nepotism.

The petty monster inside me wants to tell him to walk away. To flip his family off and go no contact like so many other people do.

Except he’s got a twin brother. And there’s this stupid nagging sensation every time I think of his mother. Plus, Lennie is all but married to Elijah and she’s my best friend so how can I tell him to cut contact with his brother when I get no less than five texts a day from her.

“They’re your family,” I whisper in the night.

I’m just some girl he met in a restaurant one day. We could bury the hatchet between us. I’ve already forgiven him for his part. His father twisted him into the man he is. But girls come and go. The Zimins, as annoying as they are, are forever ingrained in this city.

“We’ll just ask Gia Akatov to adopt us,” Roma says.

I start to laugh, biting down on my lip to stop.

“It’s where Elijah spends holidays now.” His foot slides over mine.

“This could just be sex.” We’ve always been good at it.

“Bar the fact that we’re both too old for a friends with benefits situation you know it’s more than that anyway.”

“We don’t know that.”

“You’re being stubborn.”

“I’m really not,” I lie.

“We’re going to table this discussion.”

This takes me by surprise.

Roma pulls the covers up, tucking me back in.

“I’m not going to wake up and magically think everything is solved.”

“That’s fine.” He settles into the pillows. “We can discuss it again tomorrow night. And the night after that. And the night after that.”

I roll my eyes. “So what? We’ll string the argument out until I get used to the idea and in the meantime you’re in my bed anyway.”

“We always did have our best arguments in bed right before we fucked.”

“You’re lucky my wrist is still fucked or I’d throttle you.”

His leg nudges mine. “I’m looking forward to it.”