Page 33 of The Marriage

Funny.

Karine thought she’d run out of tears.

SEVEN

Roman could barely fucking stand it—returning to New York City as a married man, but alone.

Leaving Karine at the new facility, seeing the pain and anger in her face—when she refused to even look at him—it broke him. He’d known the second he walked out of there that it was the wrong choice. It was also the only one he had, and it was already too late. What was done was done.

He had no one to blame.

This was all on Roman.

That’s what made it worse.

Marky met him at the airport with a car, and Roman’s hand shook like a junkie’s would when he lit his cigarette. He’d needed to stay a couple extra days in Vegas just to finalize a few minor details that would keep Karine safe, and erase any of his footprints that he might have left behind that could lead to her, but then he was gone.

And broken.

“You all right, man?” Marky asked, taking the airport’s exit ramp without a glance over his shoulder as he merged. Someone behind them blew their horn, but his friend only laughed and hit the gas harder.

Roman pasted himself to the passenger side door, glaring out the window at the familiar streets that didn’t quite feel like home. He’d never been so unhappy to see New York. “No. I feel like someone’s broken every bone in my body. I don’t think I’ve physically hurt this much before.”

He felt hungover, and exhausted, even though he hadn’t touched a drink in more than twenty-four hours. There wasn’t a drug in his system to do the deed, either. Shame, really, because getting high or drunk might have made this slightly more bearable.

Roman was desperate for numbness. That was the terrifying truth. He craved that blissed, unfeeling place he had spent most of his teenage and adult life more than he ever had since he put that shit down.

Marky glanced at him from the driver’s side, taking in the way Roman had awkwardly slumped against the door.

“Come on, man, you did what you had to do. There was no other way,” Marky tried.

Roman scoffed.

No.

That just wasn’t true.

“I can think of a hundred things I could have done differently. For starters, I shouldn’t have left Karine there. I should have just taken her out of the country like I wanted to at first.”

But they’d needed a little more time for a decent passport forgery that would pass in some of the world’s largest international airports. He just couldn’t make it work, not without risking getting flagged somewhere overseas—because they sure as shit wouldn’t have stayed on this continent.

Marky shook his head. “And what, leave your father here—your ma? I mean, fuck, Demyan will handle business regardless, but that doesn’t mean it’ll end well.”

Roman didn’t reply.

His friend didn’t really need him to.

“That’s not gonna happen, Roman. You wouldn’t be able to stay away from Brighton Beach if there’s a war happening anywhere near it. You know what your duties to your family are.”

“Karine is fucking family now, too,” Roman snapped back.

He didn’t mean to be a prick.

Shit was just ... bad.

Everything was bad for Roman right then—like his entire world had somehow flipped over on its top and no matter what he did, he couldn’t feel right. Everything was wrong. Bad all over.

Marky clutched the steering wheel hard. Maybe he’d already run out of things to say, or the sight of Roman was enough to tell the man he wasn’t going to get anywhere.