I hadn’t known Sapphire had attempted to find a woman for me first, and that knowledge made me the tiniest bit happier. Not towards Kiril, only to Sapphire and then Beau by default.
“I speak English.”My eyes rolled as I finished my cookie and glugged my coffee in almost one sip so I could get to my feet and leave – I was bored with waiting, and refused to do it for another moment more.
Kiril got up as though he would follow me.
“But not all the time. Not well enough.”He replied.
“I don’t want you. I never will. So you might as well leave me alone now, rather than keep pushing me. Because I will go out of my way to make you hate waking up each day if you continue to piss me off.”I snarled.
The door opened, but I didn’t bother to turn to it. Instead, I glared at Kiril, hoping he would take a step closer so I could have a valid reason to stab him that Sapphire and Beau wouldn’t get mad about. Not that I thought Sapphire cared about stabbing in general, but apparently Kiril was mildly her cousin or something and I figured she wouldn’t be happy if I slit his throat ear to ear.
He smiled softly at me.“I’m not asking you to want me, Yeva. I’m asking you to let me protect you and keep you safe from anymore monsters. That’s it. You just have to let me do my job.”
“Then let me rephrase myself. I won’t ever trust you to look out for me – I won’t ever let you near me enough to save me and-”I cut myself off when my name was said.
Well, said was the wrong word for it. My name was whispered like a prayer and a sin all in one, with the rough voice of a man I did not know, tainted with the slight lilt of a boy I had once considered my home.
“Yeva.”My name was whispered again, by another.
Anotherman.
Another memory.
Another thing I did not need or want.
Turning my back on Kiril, I pretended I didn’t care about facing the grown up versions of my childhood best friends – I acted like it was nothing to see them and I would do so until they went away. Partly out of spite, mostly out of the deep hatred and anger that fuelled me far more than blood or oxygen did.
“Vissarion.”The tall, black-haired monster on the right, with enough tattoo covered muscles to make me terrified, wasthe first I greeted, and my tone was not polite. It was even less polite as I turned to his slenderer counterpart, with the longer brown hair that curled around his sharp jaw.“Daniil.”
They looked similar to how I remembered. Height and strength aside, I could see the familiarities of the two men I had loved in a time when love had been a thing in my life. Daniil still had those big hazel eyes dripping with long lashes, and the silver chain his beloved grandfather had gifted to him on his fifth birthday around his neck. Vissarion still required glasses, but now they were big, black and square, and covered his pretty brown eyes that had always stared at the world with too much softness for how cruel it was. The pair were covered from their necks and below with tattoos, the same way Kiril was. I could see the Bratva ink on all three men too, and just like Beau, they did not wear it with pride. If anything, they seemed like they were covering up the evidence of their bullshit gangster lives. As though anyone would ever be able to look at them and not see them for who they truly were.
Monsters.
Monsters in the flesh of something claiming to be human.
They deserved to die, just like the rest of the men in the world did. All of them ought to have been put down and though I had no skill to do such a thing, I really wished I did.
I would have avenged all my friends – all the women who had felt the heartless touch of a world run by monsters and had never once been able to seek retribution.
“Why are you here?”I spat, hands shaking, as I debated just how hard it would be to shoot everyone in the room and then run.“What do you want?”
Daniil scoffed as they both rushed toward me, voices almost shouting over each other in their desperation to be the biggest tool in the room.
“What do we want? Are you serious, Yeva?!”He snarled at me like a fucking animal that needed to be put down.
I wanted to put him down.
“We thought you were dead and-”Vissarion grabbed my arm to pull me toward him and I instantly felt sick to my core.
Part of it was out of fear, but most of it was out of hatred. The kind of hatred that made each fiber of my soul come alive with the urge to cause havoc in the worst sort of ways.
I wanted his hands to be cut off.
Iwanted to cut off his hands.
“Don’t fucking touch me.”I shoved him away with all my might and took a few steps back.
To give him the slightest of credits that I would never say out loud, Kiril pulled his gun from his jeans, and used it to indicate the two men take a seat and leave me alone. But it was too late in my mind. They’d already put their hands on me – they’d already reminded me of things best left unsaid and proved to me once more than no matter the men they claimed to be, I knew what they truly were.
