Page 44 of Sire

He opens the door. Standing in the threshold with his damp hair, he’s wearing a white T-shirt, light grey sweatpants, and a worried look. “Can we talk?”

“Uh, sure.” I reach to throw the sheets off.

“No.” He signals for me to stop. “Stay there. Let’s just, uh…” He gestures to the corner of my bed. “May I?”

“Sure.”

He’s acting weird. He sits quietly for a long time, keeping his distance with his hands clasped together. His distant stare is locked on the wall in front of him, and I think … he’s praying?

He makes me worry, “Sire? What’s wrong?”

A soft smile lifts his lips as he glances at me. “That’s the first time you’ve called me by my name.” He huffs, “And it’s not even my real name.”

“Is this when we start giving answers? Like, what is your real name?”

“My birth name is Sergei Kholodov, the first son and heir of Ruslan Kholodov, the head of the Bratva, the Russian mafia, but let me go first.”

My shock lasts two seconds because he hits me with…

“Nannie’s real name was Nannette Banks. Right?” he asks, and I nod, feeling my world start to unravel. “And her son’s name is Waylon Banks? Right?” Tears well in my eyes. “And he’s the meth dealer who funneled you into the human trafficking ring where I found you?”

“Where you rescued me,” I mutter, letting my first tear fall.

“Wren…” He reaches for my foot under the blanket, gently grabbing it like he’ll never let me go. “I know about your child services file. I know all the cruel reasons you never had a home, how you were never held, how you talked to God and butterflies when you were a little girl.”

Tears blur my vision. “I still do.”

Barely, he smiles before his face falls. “I know that after Nannie died, her home was involved in a meth bust, and thenit went up in flames.” He squeezes my foot. “Did you set that fire?”

I lift my chin, tears spilling down my cheeks. “Damn right I did.”

“But Wren, it was your only home. You had no place else to go.”

“Nannie never would have wanted her home used like that. She loved her son but wouldn’t enable him. She had a restraining order against him.”

“But he took possession because you weren’t eighteen when she died, though her home had been left to you.” Sire pauses, searching my eyes. “Did he kill his mother?”

I can barely speak through the rocks choking my throat. They burn. “Technically, no. But they fought about her leaving the home to me and not him, and I think it caused her so much stress that it was my fault that she…”

A sob breaks my voice. Embarrassed, I cover my face with my hands.

“Come here.” Sire gets up and sits beside me. Pulling me into his strong arms, he holds me against his chest. The compassion is so new to me that nineteen years of pain break me into a thousand pieces.

I’m a girl in his arms and a grown woman, too. Everything I’ve held in for so long collides, and I don’t know how long I cry. I just finally let it out. I finally have someone who doesn’t yell at me to stop crying, who’s not pushing me away.

Nannie was loving, but she wasn’t affectionate. She was mountain-strong and gave that gift to me. She taught me to fight back.

But in Sire’s warm arms, I don’t have to fight. With my cheek on his chest, and his big hand caressing my head there, even though I’m snotting his T-shirt, I hug him, too, and he holds me even tighter.

“You have a home now, Wren,” he whispers into my hair. “This is your home, too.”

I pull back, my vision blurred, my breath huffing, “But you just met me.”

Gently, his thumb brushes a tear away. “We both know we’ve just begun.”

My heart stutters, happy, but, “You don’t know what I did.”

“Oh, Angel.” A sweet smile plays on his lips. “You have no idea about me, either.”