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I’m never taking it off.
“Wait a second,” I say, peering up at him. “We were broken up. Why did you buy this for me?”
“I had it made the day after our first tutoring session. I intended to give it to you after you passed your first test.”
It’s a little trinket to commemorate you passing your test. I’ll give you your surprise tonight. Wear something nice.
He was going to give it to me the night his father broke us up.
Tears well in my eyes. “You kept it?”
“Of course, malishka. I told you—I never stopped loving you. But I had to pretend otherwise.”
Alek mentioned something about the “unspeakable things” his father wanted to do to me, though I’d prefer not to know what they were.
“I have another birthday request,” I say, glancing down at the stray wrapping paper on my lap.
“Name it and it’s yours.”
I take a deep breath. “I want Mikhail to erase the video of Chad and Johanna.”
Alek knits his brows together. “Why?”
He doesn’t know.
I bite my lip before reaching for his hand. A sigh escapes my chest. “Johanna’s dead, Alek. She died at the scene. I saw her body.”
He continues to hold me, though he suddenly feels far away. “I see.”
“She’s already suffered enough. Tarnishing her memory in death just feels… wrong. The video should be deleted as a last show of kindness to her. Don’t you think?”
“Consider it done.” His voice is clipped. Distant.
I squeeze his hand, trying to bring him back. “I know you two were friends once, so I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Why should I care?”
I shake my head. “No, don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend not to care. You act like you don’t give a fuck about anybody else, but you’re just lying to yourself and to me.”
“Malishka—” Closing his eyes, he yanks his hand out of mine to pinch the crease between his eyebrows.
“If you didn’t care about others, you wouldn’t have risked your life to save everyone in that auditorium. Konstantin sees it, too.”
That gets his attention. He opens his eyes, and a flash of anger burns behind his irises. “You and Konstantin are having private chats now?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not like that. When I got back to the auditorium, he was with Irina because she was injured, and he told me what you did.”
“What exactly did Konstantin say?”
“That deep down, you care about politics and how you ‘belong to Andarusia’ or whatever. And…”
I catch myself because if I tell him the rest, it will further the divide between them. Konstantin is not my favorite person, but I don’t want to get in the way of their friendship.
“And what?” he asks in a dangerous tone.
