Page 161 of The Darkness is Calling

If I’m still dreaming, I don’t want to wake up. Even so, reality is far more beautiful when Ekaterina’s blue eyes look at me sleepily, with that same warmth that changed my life completely from the day I first saw her.

“Is it all over?” comes her hoarse question after all the crying she did today.

“Yes,” I say just as softly. “Forgive me.”

She lets her heavy eyelids hide any wet shimmer that might have threatened to return, and exhales slowly. Then she opens her eyes slightly and tries to sketch a smile.

“I was born and raised in Bratva. It could have been worse.”

“It could have happened without anything like this at all if I had let you go from the beginning.”

I press my forehead to hers and let the despair show in my broken voice.

“But I couldn’t. I love you too much to let you go. But if that is truly what you want, I will make sure no one ever bothers you again.”

“But I won’t be happy,” she whispers.

“You can’t know that.”

“Yes, I can. Because you wouldn’t be beside me.”

I pull away from her forehead and remember the words she said to me before firing the last shot. To me, they were the sign that I had to end the madness that had stretched on longer than I could accept.

Though they had given me the light I needed in the darkness that had surrounded me my whole life, for a moment I thought it had only been a declaration spoken in panic. That moment when you love everything that has ever existed in your life, knowing you won’t have any of it anymore. But now I need her confirmation.

I cling to a painful hope that she can forgive me and that she loves me as much as I am desperate for this woman.

“I thought you were unhappy with me.”

“For a moment, so did I. But with every day I slept in a separate room from you, I realized I can’t live with the emptiness that would stay in my soul if you weren’t beside me.”

Tears dampen her eyes again, and I pull her closer, savoring the simple touch of her fingers on my face.

“I love you too much to live without you,” she tells me warmly.

Inside my head, there is a sound like a drum announcing the most beautiful seconds of my life.

All the weight of the world lifts from my body, and I can breathe again, while the scent of her hair is the dose of air without which I cannot exist.

“So you don’t want to leave anymore?”

She shakes her head. “Never. But you can’t leave me either.”

With her thumb, she strokes the sealed wound on my split lip.

“If something happens to you, I’ll suffer just as much as if someone hurt me in the same way,” she whispers, pain in her voice.

“I will do everything I can to avoid that scenario, but your safety will always be the most important thing to me. I won’t allow anyone to touch you again, even if that means bringing every mobster in the world into my organization. Whoever isn’t on my side will be eliminated.”

She laughs a little.

“That’s not exactly a comforting thought, knowing you’ll start a war with anyone who becomes your enemy.”

“That’s exactly the point. There won’t be any war. Only negotiations and eliminations. Without giving anyone the chance to strike back.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“All I want is for our family and our children to have a peaceful life, without being captive in golden cages.”