He wouldn’t let this end.
We sat there for long moments, so long I didn’t think we’d speak the rest of the flight to Desolation. I lifted my legs onto the seat and curled them close to my chest, adjusting myself so I could look out the window.
We'd been in the air for half an hour now, the time surprisingly passing by in a blur, but the tangible energy that kept coming from Nikolai couldn't be ignored.
I’d stopped glancing over at him, knowing I’d see the same thing each time. Hard resolve that he would deal with my father in the way men like him did
Violently. With finality.
But I didn’t have the energy or the emotions to care, to try and talk him out of it. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
All I cared about right now was getting Claudia safe and out of that house, away from my father. Because surely now, after all of this, after the spectacle that happened in his office with Nikolai, my father was especially volatile. And Gio and my mother could only protect my sister so much.
“Your mother is under your father’s thumb so deeply she’s embedded there,” Nikolai finally said and I was so startled by the deep timbre of his voice that I actually jerked slightly in my seat and turned to look at him.
I licked my lips and nodded, not trusting my voice for fear it would tremble from the force of my thoughts and emotions. And I didn’t want to appear even weaker than I felt I was already coming across. I was ashamed that I wasn’t stronger, that I hadn’t fought harder, that I hadn’t just taken my sister and ran.
My mother was already too far gone in my father’s clutches to listen to reason. She hadn’t protected us all these years, and instead had been complacent in his wrath and hatred toward us. She’d let his anger wrap around us with the reasoning, the explanation that it was “just how things were”.
Just how things were.
I was done with that.
“You act surprised.” I uncurled my legs and stretched them out, not realizing I’d been in the same position for so long that my legs were cramped and aching.
He lifted his hand and ran it over his jaw before smoothing it up and down his thigh. I watched the act, remembering how he’d done that last night in the hotel room before he patted his lap and told me to come sit down.
I felt a flush move over me, unexpected arousal washing away all my worry, which just made me feel even guiltier.
“Women in the Bratva, or at least in Desolation, aren’t like that.” He leaned back in the seat further and spread his legs a little wider, the position shouldn’t have been as attractive as it was.
And he was so big, his legs so long, his torso so muscular and wide, that he dwarfed that leather seat.
“They stand by their man, powerful in their own right. They don’t cower. You can’t when it concerns the world we live in.” There were shadows behind his blue eyes, things he wasn’t telling me.
I didn’t ask him about his mother. Maybe that’s where that darkness came from.
“Of course this isn’t how it always is, or was.” His jaw clenched at that last word. “Even though it should be. But there’s a lot of evil that lurks right under your nose.” He lifted his hands, palms up, as if that explained it all.
“You're worried about your sister.” He said it point blank and I didn’t hesitate to nod.
“My father is going to take it out on her.” I looked out the window again, seeing nothing but white and blue, so far up I could almost pretend that we’d never land again, that we could stay high above the world where nothing could touch us.
“Your father will take what out against your sister?”
I dragged my tongue over my bottom lip, feeling that soreness from when he’d bit the flesh last night, once again another reminder of what we’d shared and done.
I didn’t answer for long seconds, but when I finally did look at him I could see no judgment, no anger directed toward me. There was this calculation in his eyes, this steady resolve. How was he so different from the men I grew up around? How was he so different from my father?
“Because of the situation that happened with Edoardo.” My voice cracked on that last word as memories of all that blood, the brain splattering across the wall beside me, slammed into my mind like a broken record.
Over and over again. On repeat.
“He blames me, thinks I was having some clandestine rendezvous with him, a scandalous affair that would have ruined his reputation.” I looked down at my lap and twisted my fingers together. “And I don’t care that he thinks I’m a whore. I don’t care that he blames me for anything or everything. I just want to protect my sister. I know that because if he can’t punish me for all that has happened, he’ll take it out on Claudia.”
He stayed silent, too silent that I thought I overstepped bounds, taking liberties that would put me in a bad position with my husband.
Although I didn’t think there was any love lost between Nikolai and my father, saying anything negative in regards to Marco wasn’t something a daughter should do, especially to her husband who had professional ties with him.
I started to feel beads of sweat line my temples, fear skating down my spine. I was shifting on the seat, twisting my shirt in my hands. I couldn’t sit still, all the horrible, awful things that could and would happen bombarding my brain so that’s all I could see and think and feel and hear
“Amara.”
It was the hard, rough sound of Nikolai’s voice pulling me out of my thoughts that had me blinking to clear my vision and looking over at him.
He was leaning forward in his seat, his elbows resting on his thighs as he stared at me severely.
“I…” I was rubbing my palms up and down my legs and noticed the way his gaze dipped down to watch the act for just a second before he brought his focus back to my face.
“Just forget I said anything. Everything‘s fine. Everything‘s fine.” I looked back out the window and bit my bottom lip, feeling like a fool for running my mouth the way I did.
It didn’t matter how Nikolai acted toward me, how he protected me… killed for me. How he’d assaulted my father to keep me safe. None of that mattered at all because he was still the bad guy. He was still part of the same world I was, and in that world, no matter what he said, I had to learn my place. I had to learn to think before I spoke.
I’d only make things worse, not only for me, but my sister as well.
“Come here.”
I looked at Nikolai after that hard command and watched as he slowly straightened before leaning back in the chair, taking on that relaxed position once again. He had his forearms resting on each side of the seat, one hand crawled around the edge of the armrest, his fingers stroking the leather slowly.
He didn’t have to ask again. I braced my hands on the seat and pushed myself up, taking the three steps that required me to stand in front of him.
Despite the fact I was now taller than him and he was looking up at me, I still felt so tiny, so incomparable to his presence.
He was like the sun and I was the earth orbiting around him. He was bright and big and without him I felt cold and dead. It was the most unexplainable emotion I’d ever felt, this feeling that one person held so much power over me.
It was a weakness, another one I certainly didn’t need, but also one I couldn’t get rid of no matter how much I desperately wanted to.