Page 80 of Godless Saints

I exhaled through my nose. “He’s thirty-six. Already Pakhan. Rival faction. Had you on the Belaya Noch all summer and you’re telling me it’s not simple?”

Misha flinched.

Ice slid through my chest. “Jesus Christ.” My hand loosened, then tightened again. “You were on the Belaya Noch.”

His eyes stayed on the grass. “For the summer.”

“For the summer?”

His mouth twisted. That dead little smile came back. “You were in Saint Lucia. Busy fucking Moon or whatever.”

That hit right under the ribs. My fingers let go of his wrist. Misha rubbed the spot like I’d bruised him. Maybe I had.

Fuck.

“He thought I knew things,” Misha said.

My shoulders locked. “Did you?”

“No.” He shrugged, small.

“That was the problem.”

I had no fucking answer. Adrian Mirovsky had expected Aleksei. He got Misha instead.

“What problem?” I asked.

Misha’s thumb dragged over his sleeve cuff. “He saw things he wasn’t supposed to see.”

“What things?”

He shut down. Face blank. Eyes gone.

I watched his sleeve. The way he kept one wrist angled away.

“Misha.”

“I wasn’t doing great this summer.”

The words came out flat. Then he tried to smile, anyway. “Zero stars. Would not recommend.”

I moved before he finished, just enough that my shadow fell over him.

“Misha.”

He looked away.

“You tried it again?”

He didn’t answer. The silence was enough. I grabbed him, hauling him hard against my chest.

“Cil—”

“Fuck, no.” My voice cracked like a fucking idiot. “Don’t you dare. We’ve been over this before. You promised me, Misha.”

He stopped. My hand fisted in the back of his jacket so hard the fabric creaked.

“Don’t you ever make that choice alone again. You call me. You wake me. You drag me into the dark with you if you have to. But you don’t leave me standing here without you.”