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The only reason I allow him to drag me half way through this house is because I’m too stunned to realize what he’s doing. Lev is my gentle giant. He has never pushed me around, not even in bed. He might be rough here and there but dragging me around is not his thing.
I know this isn’t him, but my frustration gets the better of me as he pulls me into a room I have never seen before.Fuck, this place is way too large for one man.
The room he pulls me into is a library with black shelves lining the walls and lighting illuminating the hundreds of books that surround us. Large cushions act as seats throughout the room, and I can’t help but wonder if this is a place Lev spent a lot of time in when he was growing up.
But I set that thought aside to pull myself from his grip. Using my forearm, I press his back into the wall while keeping pressure on his chest.
“What in the ever loving fuck was that, Ghost?”
My nostrils flare in anger, but when his eyes meet mine, I’m forced to back up. He shakes his head, his lip quivering as he fights for a breath. That’s when I see it. The second I realize what’s happening, I pause. My Ghost is giving up.
Chapter 23
“I won’t lose you again.” My voice breaks, my lips trembling in equal measure of fear, anger, and pain.
I’m terrified that if we push this and go after her uncle again, I’m going to lose her for good, and I can’t go through that again. Fuck, when she had that gun to her head I thought this was actually it.
My hands shake violently as I tug at my hair and pace the room. I just got her back. That pain was too much and still feels too raw. She has only been home for a little over three weeks with us.
Between therapy, settling in, and helping her reacclimate, we’ve barely had any time to reconnect. We need time with her, not to watch her chase her demons until one of them takes her away from us for good. Or worse, she offs herself because of the poison that man put in her head.
Frustration burns through me that she could even think this is a good idea. Running into battle with nothing but revenge on her mind. It feels like we aren’t even a thought in her plans when Adrik comes into play.
That’s where the hurt comes in. She didn’t look to us to see if this was something we even wanted. She didn’t ask, didn’t even think we might not want to risk her life again.
And that’s the problem I keep running into when it comes to moving past all of this. Evie might have apologized for not communicating with us and waiting until we all agreed on a plan to react. But she didn’t learn from her mistakes, which only makes the apology mean shit.
There isn’t a single cell in my body that believes she wouldn’t stand in front of a bullet for the three of us. What she doesn’t seem to understand is that I can’t watch that happen. If one of us goes down, we all fall. I need her to open her fucking eyes and see that.
Evie reaches her hand out, but I turn away from it. I see how much that hurts her, but I’m not changing my course here.
“Lev,” she whispers, “you’re not going to lose me.”
I clench my fists, but anger isn’t an emotion I experience often, so I have no idea how to not fly off the handle with her right now.
“Don’t say that,” I seethe. “Don’t you dare say those words to me when I know without a doubt you would do the same thing you did last time. Sacrifice yourself for us without a single thought as to how we would feel.”
I march towards her, backing her into one of the bookshelves when a flash of real fear crosses her features. She’s never been afraid of me, not since the moment we met.
The reaction should make me back down, it should make me want to apologize, but I’m too damn hurt to see reason.
“You didn’t see what your actions did to them. You hardly saw what it did to me. You left us behind when we were supposed to be a team. You do not get to talk about walking back onto that battlefield again until your mindset changes.”
Her mouth drops open to try to speak, but I cover it with my hand.
“No. Not until you understand the stakes here. Not until you see what I just saw a few minutes ago. I willnotlose you.”
She takes my words as a challenge, I can see it all over her face. Evie pushes at my chest, forcing me to let her talk when my hand drops from her lips.
“Do not ever silence me again, Lev Sovietnik.” Her finger raises at me. “I hear you, I do. You had to be a little rough to get your point across, but I fucking got it.”
Now she’s stepping forward while I move back. She’s like a tiger cornering her prey right now. Vicious. And while it may be slightly terrifying, it’s also hot as fuck. It’s moments like these that I’m reminded all too well why I fell in love with this woman.
A storm swirls to life in her gray eyes, one more powerful than she’s ever directed at me.
“I fucked up. I get that. But I only left because I knew Adrik wouldn’t let me die. I believed you guys would live if I took the targets off your back. And guess what, Lev? I was right.”
She throws her hands up in the air, and just as I try to retort back about how well that worked out for her, for all of us, she holds up her hand.
