“No, you beautiful idiot, I’m calling you sleep deprived and stressed. Now get the fuck over your anger. We’re going to workout, eat, shower and sleep, and I am not hearing an argument.” I joined him, getting to my feet and towering over him with a wicked grin.
I could see he wanted to argue with me. He was practically bouncing on his feet with the urge to tell me to take a running leap off the nearest bridge and leave him alone. But he was foolish if he thought I would let him get away with that. Or anything remotely self-sabotaging again.
“But I-”
My hand wrapped around Misha’s throat, shutting him up instantly.
“I’m bigger than you and stronger than you. And I have no objections to dragging you through this house and forcing you to do whatever the fuck I want you to do. So be a good boy and do as you’re told the nice way.”
It wasn’t like it was a baseless threat. Iwouldhave done it.
He glared at me, and I could see he wanted to argue with me more than anything. There was a burning desire in his pretty hazel eyes to tell me to fuck off and that he was an adult – he could do whatever it was he wanted, no matter how stupid. But Misha wasn’t dumb, and he knew I wasn’t playing. If I had to make him look after himself, then I would, and he knew it.
“Fine.” He huffed. “I can give you a single night of compliance, but that’s it. Don’t push me.”
Turned out he meant his words. Two hours later he was collapsing on the floor of Sapphire’s shower, after I’d made him box long enough to want to die inside. Punching the bag had made his anger hotter, but after a while it had relented – he’d been calmer, less sad. There was something different in the way he looked at me that said just a little piece of the hatred he was suffering through had been tampered down.
Only then did I allow him to stop and helped drag his sorry ass to the shower. He was dead on his feet, but it was hardly a hassle for me to get in with him and help him out. Even more so when he was clean, had eaten, and wrapped himself up in bed. I couldn’t stop myself from curling up next to him, even when I wasn’t tired. Being beside someone I loved seemed like the best plan, considering I was only faking being okay.
Losing Malone had reminded me of losing my parents and instead of having a bunch of responsible adults to look out for me and make me feel better, I was the one in charge.
I had to step up and take care of people.
I had to do the same thing for everyone around me that they had offered me.
“Thanks.” Misha whispered after a while of silence as he stared into the distance, not looking at anything in particular. “I needed this.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Mish.” I spoke through the tears I wanted to shed. “Grief is the worst pain in the world, and I know nothing I say will make it better, but youwillget through it. You will feel more like yourself again one day, and even if it takes a decade, it doesn’t matter. Because we will be here, and we will love you regardless of how you need to act to stop the pain. If I have to do this shit every day to make you feel a little better, then I will. It’s nothing – all I care about is that you’re okay.”
It wasn’t even properly dark outside – the sun was now almost peeking through the clouds. We had no idea how the mission Widow and the others were on had gone, aside from a single text from Beau to let us know they were returning home. Not that many feet away, Yeva, Diamond, Darius, and Tanner were all in the same room, sleeping in one giant space. Or at least everyone was sleeping and Tanner was in a coma. But still. There were other people with trauma and desires for vengeance in the building. There were other things to be done.Our girlwas missing –Henleycould have still been missing…
But I would stay here. I would stay in bed and hug my boyfriend until the tiniest piece of his heart hurt less and I would have no regrets about it. Nearly everything else could wait.
Misha was important. I had to help him the same way he’d helped me all those years ago by holding him together so he didn’t break.
“Mom said she didn’t want to talk to me.” His voice broke through our breathing and the croak of nearby crickets, when I thought he’d fell asleep. “She answered the phone the other day and said she couldn’t stomach the sight of us when we look likedad and asked for some space before she came home again. And I know she lost her husband and is grieving, but I… I just…” Tears burned harder until he was sobbing against my chest. “I need my mom and she’s not here. Again. She’s never been here when I needed her the most and now I don’t have dad either.”
There was nothing I could say to that. Misha was right. His dad was dead. His mother was unable to push her pain aside to be there for her children, even if I thought she ought to have done so. He had lost half of his blood family in a single day. But he had me. He had me, Kody, Logan. He had all the other people in the house and beyond who cared for him.
Misha had Lincoln.
He would have Sapphire again.
We would figure this shit out. We would find a way for everything to be okay and I would make sure that Misha never had to go through the same thing again no matter how many nights I had to lie there for hours on end, letting him cry on my shoulder as I whispered promises that everything would eventually be okay and no matter what, he wasn’t alone.
He had me, and that would never change.
Chapter Seven
Ihad never been a fan of grime music. It wasn’t something that often drifted over from England with enough popularity to make me take the time to notice it. When I barely even liked rap – I was more of a rock and roll or punk guy – it was definitely something that barely made it onto my playlist. But for some reason as we traipsed down the stairs to the dark and chilly basement level of the piece of shit nightclub,their playlist was nothing but grime.
And you know what?
It was a good backing track for murder.
The beats and pure anger that bounced off the white-tiled walls and concrete floors downstairs only heightened the rage in my soul. Though I was mad enough, considering why we were here, and the music probably wasn’t a necessity. My head was pounding with a fog of darkness, so much so, I barely evenregistered we were in a large hallway, filled with a dozen doors and a table that had a handful of gangsters sat at it, playing cards and smoking nasty smelling weed without care.
I only clocked the death in the air that echoed with screams. Everything else was redundant.
