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Chapter Fourteen
“Ready to go?” Ionikoasked gravely even though he knew it was a pointless question. Katya had told him their sister hadn’t slept a wink, spending the rest of the night packing her things and making calls to ensure she no longer had any need to go back to Miami.
MJ nodded. “Ready as I will ever be.” She forced a smile, telling herself she had learn to do it sooner or later anyway.
Katya returned her smile, but her sister’s was an even bigger fake. MJ’s heart constricted, knowing how much Katya worried over her. But it was as if she couldn’t completely empathize with anyone. Walls around her heart had somehow come out of nowhere, preventing her from feeling as much as she wanted.
She could smile, but she couldn’t laugh. She could whisper, but she couldn’t shout. And she could care, but she could never love.
They stepped inside the elevator, the silence between them unbroken. She closed her eyes.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
She was doing the right thing.
She was.
MJ opened her eyes when the elevator chimed, and the doors opened to the lobby. Ioniko stepped out first and Katya followed. Only when she stepped out did she see the man standing at the very center, hair disheveled, clothes rumpled, but still looking like the most beautiful man in the world.
Oh God, God, God.
Why do you keep doing this to me, God?
Why?
“MJ,” he said hoarsely.
His voice snapped her out of her reverie, and lifting her chin, she forced herself to walk.
“MJ...”
Still, she didn’t falter, forcing herself to walk past him. But before she could, he had his fingers wrapped around her wrist. He spun her around, and she opened her mouth to tell him to let her go. But he beat her to talking, and the words he told her wrecked her world.
“I heard what you said last night.”
MJ almost fell back.
Oh God, no.
Helios never took his gaze off hers. “And I don’t give a fuck. Stay with me and torture me if it makes you happy. Just...stay with me. Don’t leave.” His voice broke.
She squeezed her eyes shut at the torment in Helios’ gaze. It wasn’t right to have someone so strong and proud like Helios begging her like this. “Please,” she said thinly, “please let me go.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” he growled rawly. “I want you with me, whatever the consequence, no matter what.”
She tried pulling away, desperate to put some distance between them. “I won’t ever allow that to happen. If you really heard me...” MJ gasped. She had to. She just couldn’t breathe, the pain inside her ballooning to such proportions it was as if she could no longer breathe without hurting.
“I can’t ever do that to you,” she choked out. “I can’t. I don’t want to.”
“But I want you to,” he said tightly. “I need you to. Because the alternative is worse. I don’t want to lose you.”
She shook her head and the tears started to fall. “Please. Just let me go.”
The hopelessness in her voice chilled and weakened him, but he rallied on, knowing he would fight for her until his dying breath. He had fucking faced a fucking nation of criminals for her. He would not give up now.
