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She propped herself up on my chest. Her brows were closer. “I wasn’t sure if it was good for you.”
I laughed because, honestly, it was funny. “Kira, I am crazy about you. There is no way I don’t like this with you. You can just throw all your insecurities concerning me into the trash.”
That brought a shine to her blue eyes. “You are crazy about me?”
What was the point of hiding? “I have been since the first time I saw you. I never stopped thinking about you. You bewitched me.”
“I always thought about you too,” she said, but there was sadness in her eyes. She was remembering that day or everything in between. “Every time I felt bad, I thought about your eyes to give myself comfort. I hated you, but I also… needed you in order to stay alive.”
I hoped to be able to do that forever. My chest tightened, and I cursed at the eight years we wasted. “I should have taken you myself that day.”
Kira looked up at me. “The day we met?”
“Yes,” I answered. My fingers softly brushed over her bandages that I changed again this morning. “I shouldn’t have just told you to go and wait for me. I should have taken you away from there. Attack would have been successful without me too.” It pained me more than anything because it was too late for the realization. Eight years too late. Eight years of pain too late.
“It was not your fault,” Kira said, and she seemed genuine. “You told me to go, and I couldn’t. It was on me.”
It was not that she didn’t go but couldn’t. For years, I assumed she just didn’t want to come with me, but the truth was so different. The truth was so much more painful.
I kissed her palm. “You know, my father once told me that every man would make one mistake in their lives for a woman. I was never scared of that because I knew I had already made my mistake that night. I thought telling you all those things was my mistake. I thought my mistake was trusting you because you cost me, Aleksei Smirnoff. I hated you for years because of it but also, I couldn’t really hate you.”
She nodded like she knew the feeling. “You said you thought. Don’t you think that was a mistake anymore?”
I shook my head. “No. I did make a mistake that night, but it was not trusting you. My mistake was being too proud. I wanted to be a part of the attack. I wanted to prove myself to the families. The families I ended all by myself.” I chuckled at that. There was only one Capo in New York now.
“It was normal.”
“It cost me you!” I said, a little too angry. She didn’t flinch. She knew my anger was not towards her. She knew I would never hurt her. “It cost me eight years of your pain. I should have made sure to take you away. Damn, I should have come back for you.”
Kira smiled with amusement, but I could still see the sadness in her. “Kidnap me sooner?”
“Yes.” Maybe then she wouldn’t be this broken. She wouldn’t make me promise to kill her.
She didn’t shout at me. She didn’t say that I was, in fact, needed to kidnap her sooner. She only kissed me. “You are doing everything right this time, Gabriele. You are avenging me. You are giving me things I have never had. And you will give me my freedom. You will let me die happily. It is more than enough.”
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t tell her that I was not killing her. I couldn’t ask her how I could change her mind, how the fuck could I keep her alive.
So, I kissed her too. I kissed her deeply so that all of her pain could leave her soul and come to mine. I wanted to take her memories and give her only love. I wanted to keep her alive.
Maybe not with me but alive.
Her absence would break me, but her death would kill me.
She needed to stay alive.
As she climbed back on top of me, I tried to imprint those words on her skin. As she moaned in English and then switched to Russian when she was losing herself, I only repeated the same thing in my head.
Keep living.
Kira
Gabriele gave me peace. He gave me gifts. He showed me how amazing things our bodies could do. He was healing me.
And when he killed me, his healing was going to be complete.
I was going to be free.
Chapter 12
