Page 84 of Ghost Ribbon

“You weren’t working. You were screaming at insects.”

“The insect touched me.”

“It walked near you.”

“It brushed my soul.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

Dimitri pointed toward the refrigerator. “Grab something else.”

Ilya pouted so theatrically that if I hadn’t known him for years, I might have mistaken it for sincerity. “You’re both so mean.”

Ilya grabbed a random protein bar from the counter, muttered something and disappeared into the living room.

Dimitri set the plate he had been holding down on the counter with more care than necessary, then turned to face me fully.

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, leaning back against the marble island.

“Did you hurt Ilya?”

My brow twitched slightly. “Hurt him?”

Dimitri’s blue eyes stayed locked on mine. “Someone saw you nearly broke his arm a while ago.”

I let out a slow exhale through my nose. Of course someone had seen. Nothing stayed quiet for long in our circles.

“I wasn’t going to break his arm,” I said evenly. “I just grabbed him harder than usual.”

Dimitri’s jaw tightened. “And why is that?”

The memory of that moment flashed behind my eyes - Ilya’s arm around Marco’s shoulders in the hallway.

“Lost control,” I said finally.

Dimitri took another deep breath. “You never lose control.”

He wasn’t wrong. I didn’t. Not usually. But Marco had a way of short-circuiting things in me I didn’t like to examine too closely.

“He touched Marco a little too close.”

Dimitri’s eyes hardened.

The shift was subtle but unmistakable. The protective older-cousin energy he sometimes carried when it came to Ilya flickered across his face.

“Tell me something,” he said slowly. “Are you in love with Marco?”

I tilted my head, genuinely curious at the question. The word love felt foreign in this context. Too human for what I felt.

“No.” I wasn’t sure that was true. I was obsessed with him and it was developing into something else. I just didn’t know what it was.

He scrutinized me, blue eyes narrowing like he was trying to see straight through my skull and into whatever was rotting underneath.

“You nearly broke Ilya’s arm for someone you don’t even love, then?”

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. The motion was more irritated than I intended.