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I kiss her palm, then bite the tip of her thumb. "My love, yousharpenmy edges, not dull them. Believe me, I've got all the rough you could ever want."
Epilogue
One month later…
Morgana
Ihug Josie for the tenth time. "You've got everything, right? Panties, Tylenol, condoms?”
"In that order? I'm going traveling. OnEarth. There will be stores, you know."
"I just wish you'd tell me what happened," I say. "One minute, you were doing fine at Kislev Enterprises, and now you're leaving?"
"I told you—I just need some space." Her shoulders sag. "There are things I love about New York and things I hate. It's time to expand my horizons."
The steward is staring at us. Everyone else has already boarded the flight. I pick up Josie's bag and thrust it into her hand.
"Go. Before I stow away in your carry-on."
Josie flashes me a grin. "Don't worry, I'll be in touch. See ya!"
I return to Vlad's side. He hung back, knowing I'd need a hug when I finally accepted that my best friend was leaving.
When I look back at Josie, it's like she's frozen in time. Her phone is in her hand, and she's staring at the screen as though she's waiting for something. People bustle around her, but she's miles away, locked into a moment of pain that cuts me deep. I take a step, but Vlad touches my arm.
"Sasha," he says.
My camera bag is at my hip. I take it out, flipping off the lens cap, and just as a single tear rolls down her cheek, I take the shot. She pockets her phone and turns away, wiping her face with her palm as she passes through the gate.
Vlad takes my hand. "She'll be okay,lisichka."
With Sergey and David dead, the Kislev boys have their work cut out for them. Vlad ought to have been convalescing, but he's been calling meetings with his bratva's associates and renegotiating business terms. It's nothing to do with me, but I wish he'd slow down.
Sasha is now Vlad's second-in-command. He has additional responsibilities, and he's risen to the challenge, but he's not been at the office much. Josie was evasive about her feelings for him, and I guess she hoped he'd turn up at JFK today and beg her to stay.
But life really isn't a movie. Except mine. My life is an action film, a horror, a crime caper, and a romantic epic.
Vlad believed he had to be like his father and that love would destroy him. I thought I was defective, unloveable, and suitable only for horrible men to use. We were wrong and needed one another's love to help us see that.
We barely escaped Cassius with our lives. But he and David showed us what avarice and raw ambition can do when combined with an inferiority complex. They tore themselves apart in vain, trying to seize power and silence the voice inside that told them they were weak.
Of everyone who influenced Vlad as he grew up, his mother won the war for his soul. She made love bloom in the scorched earth of her life, despite all the obstacles in her path.
I wish I could tell her what her sacrifice means to me. Because of her, I have a husband who would destroy anyone at my behest, but I'm not afraid of him. Love gave me the impetus to live, and when I killed Cassius, I murdered the terror that had stalked my mind all these years.
I amnotdefective. Ialwaysdeserved better, and now I have it.
* * *
When we get home, Lilyana is sitting at the piano, gingerly doing her exercises.
"Aren't you supposed to wear the brace?" I ask.
"I'm trying to do without." She wiggles her fingers. "It hurts less every day, but they get stiff after a while. The physio helps."
Lili's injuries were severe, but she's getting there. Only two of her fingers were broken, and the others were only sprained. She cried for days, terrified she'd never play again, but with careful pain management, she's regaining her range of motion.
"I have something to tell you." She looks from me to Vlad. "Well, I mean, I might have something. I don't know. I'm scared to open it."
