Page 70 of Dangerous Promises

"He's in love with your daughter," Freddie whispers, giving me a taunting stare as he smiles back at me.

Rage floods within my body and I frown, opening my mouth to yell something back at him. To fight what the fuck he just said. The bullshit he just spouted. I open my mouth... and nothing comes out.

"Alright, it's a really long story," Anton says, shaking his head at Freddie as he admonishes him.

"Where is my daughter?" Dimitri asks, looking around the room for her.

"She, we'll find her, bring her to you," Anton says, cheeks pinking like he's only just remembered that Sage ran off in the midst of this. His emotions are getting the better of him. Like his niece, he has weaknesses that he's allowed to overtake his sanity. There are no room for weaknesses when you're heading an empire.

Something Dimitri obviously knows as well as I do. Because he, too, focuses in on what else is missing from this room.

"Anton," Dimitri says. "How much time did I miss exactly?"

"Conversation for another day-"

"Anton," Dimitri says, more forcefully this time. His eyes skate around the room again and narrow before his voice turns venomous and vile. "Whereis Nicholas?"

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

Sage

Idon't know how I ended up here on my knees in the grass. But when I ran, this was the only place that made sense to come.

Nicholas's headstone is big and imposing. As it should be for the space he took up in life and in my heart. The flowers I last left here are decaying. I admittedly haven't been back to this spot in a long time. Not since I really started to take my death promise with Alexei seriously.

I run my fingers over the top of his grave, letting the tears roll down my cheek as I brush away the rotting bouquet.

"Nicholas," I say, whispering his name and saying it out loud for the first time in over a year. Shame and panic wash over me as I let his name fall from my mouth. I can't believe I let his name go unsaid for so long. I can't believe I let myself dishonor his memory by never speaking it.

I groan as I drop my head in my lap, letting my onslaught of tears wet my knees and clutching my hand to my gaping heart.

"I'm sorry," I sob. "I should've said it."

I gasp and weep, verging on hyperventilating, feeling so guilty that I didn't think more of him and say more about him over this last year.

"Things have become such a mess, Nic," I say, biting at my lip. "I wish you were here to help me through it."

I gasp for air as I calm my breathing and try to get myself back under control. My sobs become more even as I wipe my tears, but nothing makes the panic and shame go away. It simply sits there behind my throat. A warm breeze runs over my face and I clutch it to my cheek as if it were Nic's hand.

"Dad's awake," I tell him, whispering like I fear the trees will overhear us. "I... just, didn't know what to say. They told me Dad was awake, and I've been waiting for that moment for so long now. To make what I did to him right. But all I could think about when they said it was that he was going to wake up to a world that you're not in. How was I going to explain to him that you're not here? How was I going to see the look on his face, oh God-," I stop as my voice chokes. I clutch my hands to my ribs, as if that could stop the full force of sadness.

"How was I supposed to watch him be told you're not here anymore? I couldn't see it," I say.

The cemetery remains quiet and peaceful, the sky overcast, while I sit in Nic's presence and allow myself to feel it all even if I don't want to.

"You never should have stopped that bullet for me," I say, my voice a whisper again. "You're the one who should be in this world, alive. Not me." I mean it when I say it. It should've been me, and if I could, I'd swap places with him.

Did he know he was going to die? What did it feel like to live those last moments knowing it all ended there? I mourn every day that he was meant to have on this earth and didn't. Everydream that was meant to be his but was stolen from him as viciously as his life was taken.

I sit back and wipe the tears from my eyes.

The sobs are dissipating now, and I'm no longer on the verge of panic, but I do feel the grief settle deep in my chest and I just know that's where it's going to live for the rest of my life.

I look at the name Nicholas Prince on the headstone and let it eat into my soul.

For all the times I let his name go unsaid. All the times I tried to shove it out of my mind. I regret them all now as every memory of him that I tried to suppress comes running back at me in full speed.