Page 147 of The Enemy Protector
She shakes her head, wipes her face. “I can’t. I need time. I’m going to bed. Please give me space, Sergei.”
It tears at my soul to see her in pain. I want to help. Fix. Protect. That’s what I’ve done for nearly ten years.
But she’s making it clear she can’t love me.
“I understand.”
She leaves without saying another word.
33
Sofia
I wake up alone in the guest bedroom. Sergei had let me have my space last night. I lie there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, my hand resting on my stomach.
The conversation floods back in. It feels like too much. But I don’t have a choice. I have to deal with the fallout of everything he said to me.
I do the math I didn't do last night. He was at my mother's funeral. I was thirteen. He would have been thirty-three. A grown man, already running an empire, making a promise to a dying woman about a child he'd never met.
I sit with that for a moment. Wait for it to feel wrong.
It doesn't. Not the way I expected it to. What he did for the next eight years wasn't the act of a man who wanted something from me. It was the act of a man who kept his word when no one was watching and nothing was in it for him. That's not something I can be afraid of. That's the only thing in my life that has ever been entirely, unconditionally mine.
I push myself out of bed and head for the shower. I dress in jeans, my favorite boots, and a simple black t-shirt. I find Sergei in his office.
He looks up when I enter. There are dark circles under his eyes. He didn’t sleep.
“I’m going to see my father,” I say.
I expect him to argue. To tell me it’s too dangerous. To remind me that Yuri is still out there and my father’s compound isn’t secure.
Instead, he just nods. “I figured you would.”
“You’re not going to try to stop me?”
“No.” He closes his laptop. “Nelson will go with you. And a full security detail. Six men, armed. They stay with you the entire time.”
I expected an argument. I’m not going to thank him. I don’t know if I’m mad at him, but I’m something. I can’t figure out what that something is until I confront my father. I think I’ve always known my father was behind her death. I just didn’t understand in what capacity. And now that I know, I’m ready to make him pay.
“When do you want to leave?” he asks.
“Now.”
He stands and walks around the desk. For a moment, I think he’s going to pull me into his arms. Instead, he just looks at me.
“Be careful,” he says quietly.
“I will.”
I turn to leave, but his voice stops me.
“Sofia.”
I look back.
“I meant what I said last night. All of it.”
I don’t know what to say to that. So I say nothing. I just walk out.
