“And doesn’t bind me to you emotionally.”
“It already has.”
“That’s your ego talking.”
“No. That’s observation.”
She let out a sharp exhale.
“You cannot keep me here forever.”
“I don’t intend to.”
That caught her off guard.
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Then what is this?”
“A beginning.”
She scoffed.
“You think this is some twisted love story.”
“No, Elisse. It’s a choice I gave you by handing you a phone you chose not to use. I hope you remember that. You could have called Iosif or Avgust, but you didn’t because you are too scared that those you care about might die if it leads to a war. And you don’t want that.”
“This still changes nothing, and I am not staying here much longer,” she said, her arms tightening around herself.
“You’re already here.”
“That’s not the same.”
“You think you’ll walk out of this and everything will return to how it was?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Her jaw set.
“I am a Chernykh.”
“And now you are a Romanov.”
She flinched because I could see how that name still felt foreign on her.
“You can’t erase where I come from, and you can never replace my family,” she said.
“I’m not even trying to.” She stared at me as if I’d spoken another language.
“Just because I didn’t make that call, just because I didn’t scream, just because I didn’t fight you off tonight—”
“I know you could have.” That stopped her cold.
“I know you,” I said quietly. “If you truly didn’t want it, you would have stopped it.”
