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I stare at the gun. My own brother is threatening me with a gun. He really thinks he can run this family and the business without me?
He’ll be crawling to me in no time and begging me to return. Six months, tops.
I glance over my shoulder, and then stroll closer to my brother, leaning over his chair and lowering my voice so what I have to say doesn’t travel beyond this room. “So much for loyalty, Troian. Be thankful that one of us still believes in what this family stands for, otherwise, I wouldn’t merely threaten to kill you like you just threatened me. I happen to know who the main beneficiary of your will is right at this moment, and it’s not Zenya.”
I let that threat marinate in the air for an angry minute.
Then I stride out of the room and run straight into my niece in the hall. She’s been listening to our entire conversation with tears pouring down her face.
I take her hand and pull her through the house and into the back garden so we can have some privacy. Beneath a jacaranda tree, I pull her into my arms and hold her tight.
“I can’t believe this is happening. You’re really leaving?” Zenya lifts her tear-streaked face to mine.
This doesn’t feel real. I’m going to lose Zenya because of a stupid fucking joke that no one should ever have known about. “Your father doesn’t make idle threats.”
She clutches my shoulders and gazes up at me imploringly. “You can fix this. Just tell Dad you’re sorry. He’s not mad at you. He’s just afraid he’s losing everyone.”
So his solution is to throw me out of this family? Zenya wants me to go in there and beg on my knees, but if I look at my brother again with this much rage pumping through my veins, I could very well beat him to death. “I can’t fix this right now.”
I watch Zenya’s face crumple, and unlike yesterday, she doesn’t have the strength to control her tears. As they flow freely down her face, I feel each one scorched into my soul.
“But how am I supposed to live without you?” she sobs.
I shake my head hopelessly. I don’t know how I’m going to live without her, either.
Zenya cries harder. “This isn’t happening. This is a nightmare.”
I wish it were. I wish I could turn back time and hurl that tube of lipstick across the room. Or that I had been sober enough to recognize that flash of light for what it was and beat to death whoever took that photo. Or that I hadn’t been a piece of shit and gone out celebrating at all.
“Where are you going to go?” Zenya whispers.
If Zenya follows me, it will make Troian even angrier, though it’s tempting just to fucking take her. That really would finish off the Belyaevs. The only thing that stops me are the constant lectures I’ve been giving myself to be a good man around Zenya for the past year. “It’s best you don’t know for now.”
Zenya’s fingers tangle in my hair and she looks desperately up at me. “Why do I feel like I’m never going to see you again?”
I’ve been called heartless a dozen times in my life, and I wish it were true. As I gaze down into Zenya’s stricken face, I can’t breathe because everything hurts so much.
This is all Troian’s fault, the proud fuck. He doesn’t appreciate how hard it’s been for me not to do anything about my obsession with Zenya. It would tear him apart to know his own brother wanted to get his filthy hands all over his innocent daughter. I’ve been a fucking angel with her, yet he’s throwing me out of the family like I’m trash.
I take Zenya’s face in my hands, breathing hard.
So why am I bothering to hold back?
I lean down and press my lips to Zenya’s. Our first kiss, and there’s so much of her to savor, but all I can taste are her tears. It’s barely a real kiss, just a press of my lips to her soft ones. A promise for later. Something for me to remember and for her to think about until my return. “I promise I’ll be back.”
Zenya’s so distraught that she doesn’t seem to notice I’ve kissed her. My thumbs stroke the tears from her cheeks, but they just keep coming.
“People keep leaving me,” she sobs.
Pain and regret flash through me as I lean my forehead against hers. “You’re my most beloved person in the whole world, and it kills me to leave you. It won’t be for long, but you have to let me go.”
She wraps her arms around my waist and her sobs reach a fever pitch. “No, I won’t.”
“Please, Zenya.”
In the end, I have to force her to let me go, and every second she fights me, I want to stab myself through the heart for causing her all this unnecessary pain.
As I drive away from the house, Zenya’s cries are piercing my soul. I’ll leave this city, but not because I’m afraid of Troian or anyone he sends after me. I’ll leave because if I don’t, I’ll murder my brother and cause even more pain for Zenya.
