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I smile, “What else do you want, princess?”
She huffs out a soft breath. “Maybe I’ll just keep the rest to myself.”
“No,” I say pulling away to look her in the eye. “Tell me.”
“Seriously, Xander. You’re not a genie and you’re not magic. You can’t just flip a wand or your wrist and fulfil all my heart desires,” she mutters.
I wish I could. If I could make her happier by doing, so I would.
“Tell me,” I repeat, my tone leaving no room for argument.
She breaks eye contact, staring off at the wall. It takes her a long time before she’s able to say the words.
“I want to be able to love you without feeling so terrified.”
My stomach hollows at that and a burn radiates in my chest.
“Why is that so terrifying, Katerina?” I ask softly.
Instead of replying, she starts to climb off the bed. I try to ignore the way heat rolls through me at the sight of her naked body. Her ass jiggles as she walks and my cock twitches which is crazy because after what we were up to all afternoon, it should be completely out of commission. Katerina heads for a closet and grabs a dress, pulling it on and effectively hiding her body from view.
“I’m going to tell you my last wish. But first I have to try and show you the answer to that question,” she tells me. “Come on.”
I get off the bed as well, and put on my clothes before following her out the door. Katerina starts to lead me towards the end of the narrow hallway. The large brown door I saw earlier, the one she deftly tried to pull me away from. My heart pounds with the possibilities of what could be behind the door.
“We’re not going to enter,” Katerina says once we’re standing in front of it. “I don’t think I physically can.”
I don’t need to voice the question. She sees it in the way I look at her.
“Because this was my mother’s room. The room she shared with my father before she died.”
The pain behind those words, the look in her eyes, undoes whatever shred of hesitation I’d been feeling ever since I kissed her. Because if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I wanted to hunt down every single thing that causes her pain and destroy them.
When I notice a tremble go through her hand, I immediately slip mine into hers.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Katerina,” I tell her.
“No,” she shakes her head. “I didn’t tell you ten years ago because I was a coward. Maybe if I had let you see all of me, we wouldn’t be in this position. I won’t make the same mistakes again.”
“I’m listening,” I say quietly.
She takes a deep breath. “I was eight years old when my mother died. She passed away from cancer. Losing a family member is always a terrible thing. But losing someone to cancer, eats away at you in an inexplicable way. Because it’s watching that person die and being unable to do anything about it. Watching them suffer in pain and being helpless. I hated feeling like that. I was only a child but I remember praying so hard, trying so hard. I would always hound the doctors for more information, beg them every day to do their best to save her. But in the end there was nothing they could do. The day she died, I was the only one in her hospital room. I watched her die.”
I suck in a sharp breath at that revelation.
Katerina continues, “I’ve killed a lot of people over the years. I’ve watched as life was sucked from them. As they stopped breathing. But no matter how many people I watch die, none of it ever compares to the feeling of seeing my mother take her last breath. Watching her fight one last time as I screamed for help. I wasn’t supposed to be in the hospital that day. But instead of going home I managed to convince one of my father’s capos to take me there. If I had gone home, I wouldn’t have had to witness something so traumatizing. I lost someone I loved more than life itself and it scared me, Xander. Because I’ve never felt pain like that before. And I never want to again.”
She’s trembling by the time she’s done speaking. I pull her into my arms and hold her. The hallway is silent in a way that feels haunted. No one deserves to go through what she and her family went through. And now I understand why she tried so hard to build a wall around her heart. I might not know the full depth of her pain, but I feel it regardless.
Eventually I’m able to lead her back into her bedroom. She seems tired, so I tuck her into bed, aware that I won’t be getting anything else from her today. She needs a break from all the high emotions, we both do. I tuck her into the covers, ensuring that she’s comfortable before placing a kiss on her forehead. I should probably get back home anyway.
“Xander,” she says softly just before I turn to leave.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to be scared anymore.”
My heart warms as I stare down at her.
