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“It was.”
“So did she know she was going to be murdered?”
“I’ve asked myself that a million times. But I don’t think she did.”
Piper blows out a breath. “So she was planning to leave Benjamin with you and then go get back together with Rodion? And then what? Just keep Benjamin a secret?”
I shrug. “That’s what she seemed to think.”
“I’ve seen a lot of toxic relationships in my day, but that would take the cake.”
“Emily told me she didn’t think a woman who had never had actual parents and a hitman would make good parents.”
It was a fair point. She and I knew better than most what bad parents could do to a kid’s life. But it’s not as if I was a major upgrade.
“And you think I would make a good parent?” I asked Emily at the time. “I’m the don of a fucking Bratva, Em. I’ve killed people, too.”
She grabbed my hand and looked deep in my eyes. “But you’re a good man, Timofey. Under everything—your title, the things you’ve done—you are a good man.”
“If you can’t say the same thing about Rodion, you shouldn’t be with him,” I told her.
She gave me a sad smile. “You say that like I have another option.”
I blink, and the memory dissipates like smoke. Piper is watching me, and I have the feeling she was reading my thoughts.
“She was right to choose you over Rodion,” Piper says softly.
“Are you sure? You know the rest of the story. It was written up in my case file.”
She frowns, thinking. I see the moment her memory picks up the plot. “You took Benjamin to the hospital. You were going to abandon him there.”
“Rodion probably wouldn’t have done that,” I say bitterly. “But I thought Emily was insane. She refused to take Benjamin with her, and what the fuck do I know about babies? I’d never even held one before that night. So I dropped him off and figured he’d end up where he was supposed to. And then…”
Piper presses her hand to my thigh. Her fingers tense. “She died.”
“I went back to the hospital as soon as I heard she was gone. I was out of my mind with… everything. Every emotion imaginable.”
“You’d just lost one of your oldest friends,” Piper says. “It makes sense.”
“The doctor wouldn’t give Benjamin back to me, and I fucking decked him. I was going to die before I left that hospital without him. It was—” I take a deep breath. Vulnerability isn’t one of my strengths. I have to force my way through it. “It was the last way I could take care of Emily. Raising Benjamin was the last thing I would ever be able to do for her, aside from catching her killer. And I would rather have died than fail her again.”
I cast my eyes down for a few seconds. But when I finally look up, Piper is wiping tears away. “Oh, Timofey… You didn’t fail Emily. You did everything you could for her. Absolutely everything. You have to see that.”
“It wasn’t enough.”
She shifts to her knees and crawls over me, settling on my lap. Her hands on my face are gentle. “You are enough, Timofey. You’re—You’re more than enough. But even you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”
I try to hold her words lightly in my hands. Maybe if I’m gentle enough, they won’t shatter under the weight of my guilt.
Piper leans forward and presses her lips to my cheek. She touches her nose to mine and looks deep into my eyes. “You’re a good man, Timofey. No matter what has happened, I know you’re a good man capable of great things.”
Emily’s words all those months ago echo beneath Piper’s. Piper is giving me a gift. In the same way Emily gave me Benjamin, Piper is giving me the gift of a new beginning. All I have to do is let go of the past and accept it.
I’m not sure it’s possible, but when she’s touching me like this, I desperately want to try.
I grab her face and kiss her properly. I kiss her until my head is clear and my body is on fire.
The kiss shifts quickly from tender to scorching. Piper is wearing a tiny pair of pajama shorts and an oversized sweatshirt that I make quick work of ripping off of her and tossing to the floor.
