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“Are you aware you narrate your entire life?” Noelle said once. “Like, just a running commentary of what you’re doing and why.”
They were both waiting in my living room for me to get ready to go out. But to afford a night out, I needed to have a plan for the rest of the week.
Ashley cackled and dropped into her pitiful attempt at an impersonation of me. “‘I, Piper Quinn, am going to defrost this chicken to cook tomorrow night. Then I’ll have leftovers the night after when I have to work late. I can also shower while the chicken is defrosting, so I don’t have to do it the next morning when I have an early meeting.’”
“Excuse me for trying to organize my life!”
“Ever heard of a planner?” Noelle teased.
I bought one after that conversation. It helped. For a time.
But no more. The mess inside of my head needs to stay there. At least until I know it can’t get me into any trouble.
Slowly, I flip the page Timofey was looking at to the very next page. The one he thankfully didn’t see.
My handwriting fills the page from top to bottom. At first glance, it looks like some kind of crazy person’s manifesto. The frantic, sloppy writing of a person whose brain is bursting with bad ideas.
Life would be easier if I stopped trying to collect evidence against Timofey. I could do what he’s asked me to do, recommend he raise Benjamin, and then walk away. Except, I don’t think there is a way to walk away from this. From him…
I grab the corner of the page and start to rip. Maybe if I tear the page out, the feelings associated with it will disappear, too.
But I hesitate, letting myself scan further down the page.
Being with Timofey is thrilling, if I’m honest. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person or not. It probably does. I don’t even think I care anymore. When we were in that garage tonight, I would have done anything to stay there forever. I’ve never been touched that way before. I’ve never wanted someone so much before. Is it possible he wants me, too?
My face burns with shame so powerful it makes me nauseous.
“He made it very clear what he thinks of me,” I remind myself.
“That is Bratva business. My business,” he said when I asked him about whether he was going to kill Rodion. “It has nothing to do with you.”
Timofey ghosted me after we had sex. There’s no other way to put it. I didn’t even see his shadow in the hallway for two days. All of our communication took place with Akim as the middleman.
That’s why I did a deep dive into Emily’s murder. Because Timofey’s indifference to me wasn’t enough of a reason to give up my romantic fantasies. But if he’s a murderer? Surely that would be the ticket to forgetting about him once and for all, right?
And it worked. It really, truly did.
Until I came out of the shower and saw him sitting on my bed.
All it took is one glimpse of him to release all of the feelings I’d squashed down and pent up.
Timofey is like a vine planted deep in the dark depths of me. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself it’s wrong to want him or that I can’t be with him. Until I rip him out of me, roots and all, he will always have a hold.
Clearly, he didn’t like me looking into Emily’s murder—which is exactly why I can’t give up now. Rodion was right: the women in Timofey’s life don’t tend to live long.
So the only solution is to make sure I’m not in Timofey’s life.
70
PIPER
Akim is in the living room when I find him. He has a bowl of popcorn on his lap and the remote in his hand, furiously flipping through channels faster than the television can keep up.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Counting how many channels Timofey subscribes to,” he says, not slowing his clicking or looking in my direction.
“Just go to the guide page.”
