Page 142 of Ruthless Sin

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Mama.

Yelena.

I’m so sorry.

I cry one more time at the window in the first light. Quiet. No witnesses.

I lower my hand from the chain.

I’m here.

I’m still here.

I don’t know what that’s for anymore.

24

NICO

Dante hasn’t called me in since the back room.

I’ve been waiting since dawn. He didn’t summon me and wasn’t going to.

I came anyway.

I stop in the doorframe of his study with my hand on the wood. My stomach turns. Cold sweat at the back of my neck. The same dread I had walking in here as a kid the morning I broke Mama’s vase and Papa was working on a Bratva deal at the desk.

This time I broke worse.

Shame.

I’ve known the word since Moscow. I’ve been calling it other things for three years. My throat is tight. My hands are not steady and I’m not going to look at them.

I did a thing I can’t undo to a woman who deserved better, and my brother is sitting behind that door, and I’m going to stand in front of him and say so.

I go in.

He’s at the desk.

Signet ring on his right hand.

He looks up.

“You didn’t call me,” I say.

“I wanted to see if you’d come.”

He sets the pen down.

“Sit.”

“I’d rather stand.”

“All right.”

He folds his hands on the desk. Doesn’t look at the ring or the papers. Looks at me.

The Don is not in the chair this morning. My brother is in the chair.

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