Page 74 of Wicked Mafia Beast
"You're right." His voice is low, stripped bare. "You deserved to know everything from the beginning."
The admission takes the wind out of me. I was braced for defense, for justification, for the smooth tactical reasoning of a man who always has an answer. I wasn't braced for agreement.
My eyes drop to the pages in my hand. My mother's name. My grandmother's name. The truth about both of them, documented in clinical detail by men I've never met.
"My mother." The words come out smaller now, the anger draining away and leaving raw grief in its place. "Did you know what happened to her? What Seamus did?"
"The file contains Luca's findings. He paid handsomely for the information and yes, I read it." His dark eyes hold mine, and the pain behind them isn't manufactured.
“Then you know more than me. I was never told anything and I could never dig anything up. I had to assume.
He pauses and reaches for me, but I dash his hand away.
"I didn't know you didn't know, Onyx. You told me she was killed by trusting the wrong man. I thought you understood what that meant."
"I thought it meant a broken heart." The tears fall now, quiet and steady. "I didn't know my father let his brother destroy her on purpose."
Something fractures behind his expression. The controlled mask slips and underneath is a man who just realized the woman he loves has been carrying a grief built on a lie her entire life.
"I'm sorry." Those two words are rough with an accent and what sounds like regret.
I clutch the folder against my chest, the flimsy cardboard pressing into my sternum, the weight of my mother's life and death held against my heart.
"I want to be alone."
"Onyx, please."
"Don't, Kon. I just need some time." My voice cracks, splinters, threatens to disintegrate entirely. "Just... don't. I can't processthis with you standing there. I need to think. I need to read. I need to do this alone."
I walk past him. He doesn't reach for me. Doesn't block the doorway. He lets me go, and the restraint costs him more than violence ever would. I can see it in the rigid line of his spine, the fists clenched at his sides, the way his chest barely moves because he's holding his breath.
I make it to my room. Lock the door.
My back slides down the wood until I'm sitting on the floor, the folder in my lap, tears streaming in hot tracks down my cheeks and dripping off my jaw onto the manila cover. My mother's death, explained in twelve-point font. My father's cowardice, documented in evidence I can hold in my hands.
I cry until there's nothing left. Until the sobs dry up and my ribs ache and my eyes swell shut and the hollow inside my chest echoes with every breath.
In the deep hours of the night, a soft thud vibrates through the wood at my back. The floor creaks on the other side of the door, and then Kon’s breathing fills the silence, steady and close, separated from me by two inches of oak.
He doesn't knock. Doesn't demand entry. Doesn't use force or logic or Russian endearments to try to break through.
He just sits there. Waiting. All night.
Knowing he’s close, I find the strength to open the folder again. I wipe my swollen eyes with the heel of my hand and read my mother's section one more time. The evidence is thorough. Undeniable. This is the kind of documentation that could put Seamus away forever.
I could never have found this kind of documentation on my own.
He gave me the truth about my mother. Just not the way I wanted to receive it.
I don't know if that makes it better or worse, but I can’t hate him for it.
“Thank you, Kon.” I whisper through the door.
Fourteen
Kon
I've been shot, stabbed, beaten, and left for dead in a Moscow gutter with snow filling my mouth and blood freezing in my hair.
