Page 120 of Nikola

“He insisted,” my father grumbled behind me as I wheeled myself inside. It was annoying—to both of us—that he had to drive me over, but I pressed upon hearing the news.

The thought of Kostya with Skye, his hands on her… it had me seeing red. I recalled their lunch date and how they were laughing, and suddenly I could practically see them having a life together. It flipped a switch inside me.

It had nothing to do with “you don’t know what you had until you lost it” and everything to do with the fact that I couldn’t—wouldn’t—live this life without her.

Skye deserved the best, and I knew I wasn’t it, but I would try to be. She made me want to be a better man. She was the essence of my being, the reason I was put on this earth. She was my life, and without her, it would be a slow, painful kind of death.

“I need to talk to Kostya about Skye,” I breathed out, her name the sweetest kind of torment on my lips.

“Where do you want to do this?” my cousin answered, appearing at the doorway of his bedroom at the end of the hallway.

“Your room,” I said.

“No fighting,” Uncle Alexei warned and I rolled my eyes, pointing wordlessly to my legs.

Kostya disappeared inside his bedroom and I wheeled myself in, pushing the door, but it didn’t click shut. He perched himself against the desk. His bedroom was stuck in some in-between stage of young adult and grown-ass man.

I wasted no time with small talk.

“You can’t marry Skye.”

His eyebrows met his hairline. “Come again?”

“You. Won’t. Marry. My. Skye.”

Strained silence followed as we eyed each other. It stretched on and on until his fingers started tapping against the surface of the desk. I hadn’t twitched a single muscle. There was too much on the line, and while I loved and respected my family and cousins, I loved and needed Skye more. For her, I’d wage a war against my own family.

“It took you long enough,” he finally said.

A breath I didn’t know I was holding swished out of my lungs. “Did she put you up to it?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I suggested it back when you broke it off, but she decided against it. She insisted on giving you time and then coming after you herself. She didn’t want to manipulate you by putting us against each other.”

My lips curled into the first smile since the accident. “That’s so Skye.”

He nodded. “I’m not sure you deserve her, Nikola.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I know.”

“Then fucking apologize.” It was a simple, no-nonsense answer. “You know what Skye asked me the other day?”

“What?”

“She wanted to know how men get through shit without crying.”

The corners of my lips twitched. “Did you tell her we bottle it all up until we die of stress and heart failure like real men?”

“Something like that,” he drawled. “Then she called me a dumbass and said she won’t come to my funeral if I die areal”—he made quotation marks around the last word—“man.”

“You shouldn't have pushed her away.” He pinned me with a hard stare. “You owe her a big apology.”

“And you better worship the ground she walks on,” a female voice came from behind and I whipped my head around to find my aunt Aurora and Skye’s mother in the doorway.

Seeing my flabbergasted expression, Mrs. Leone walked over, kissed my cheek, and patted my hand. “Skye refused to force you into this, but I didn’t. When I heard Kostya’s suggestion, I flew right over. You and I… We need to have a talk before you do anything with my daughter.”

Kostya strode over to me and put his hand on my shoulder, then left soundlessly with his mom.

Once the door clicked behind them, I signed while saying the words out loud because I needed to hear them too.