She begins to sob. Fuck. I just hold her tight, wishing I could swallow up all that sadness for her. Eventually she quiets down.
“I need to ask you some questions. About Lazarus.”
“Huh?”
“Who does Lazarus like? Who does he trust these days?”
“I dongeddit.”
“Who is a friend to Lazarus?” I have an idea, but I need it from her. “Who does he like best? Of all the Black Lion clan guys. Who did Lazarus show up to dinner with on Friday?”
“His brother,” she says. “Ioannis.”
We know that, of course. Lazarus loves his brother. “Who else?”
“Ferit. Best buds.” The way she says it, it sounds like best buzz.
“Okay,” I say. “That’s good.”
She seems to drift off a bit. “Hey.” I shake her. “You were telling me about Lazarus’s buddies.”
“Right,” she whispers.
“Who does he ride with? Besides Ioannis? Who did he hang around with at the ribbon-cutting ceremony?”
“Engjell. Like the four musketeers.”
“Good,” I say. “That’s good. Who else? Who owes him?”
“Why?”
“The bastard wants to know, baby.”
She laughs softly and suddenly gives me a stream of names. It’s like she’s hypnotized or something and the names are just falling out of her. Her names are helpful. I grab my phone from my pocket and text to Konstantin. He needs to know what’s happening. He’ll have photos of the guys. I’m thinking Viktor can send a team of advance people in to the restaurant as off-the-street diners. They’ll be on the lookout. A layer of protection for when I go in, and they can warn me if Lazarus has filled the place with his people.
I could see Bloody Lazarus going after me and letting Aldo get caught in the crossfire. That would be a brilliant plan. Two birds with one firefight.
“Aleksio?” She turns to me. I touch her nose with the phone. She tries to grab it, but her reflexes are messed up from the drugs.
“You should sleep,” I say.
“Aleksio,” she whispers. I know what’s going to come now—it’s in the air between us. It’s in her eyes. She splays her hand against my chest.
“No, baby.”
“I liked it like that.”
My blood races. “Mira—” I’ve never wanted a woman so much. But no. Not like this.
She reaches down between us; I grab her hand before she can make contact with my cock. “No, baby.”
“Come on,” she says. “Let’s do it that way again.”
“You’re going to sleep.” I pull her tight. “That’s an order.”
“Let’s be messed up,” she whispers into my ear.
Lust whooshes through me. It’s not like we don’t have the time. An hour or more before dear old Dad shows up at Agronika. But I won’t do it.
She turns back around in my arms, facing away. I move to keep my straining cock away from her perfect ass, because there’s just so much I can handle.
“What was the question?” she mumbles. “Did you have a question?”
“You already answered the question. We’re good.”
Her breath gets even, and I think she’s sleeping. But then she sighs. So peaceful. I stroke her hair, wondering what it’s like to feel that kind of peace.
I spent a lot of years watching her from afar, wondering what it was like.
Konstantin made me into a killer, yeah, blowing guys’ heads off while they begged, while they cried, while they went about their days. He made me into a weapon sharpened for battle with old man Nikolla, but he never succeeded in making me hate Mira, much as he tried.
Mira was the untouchable goddess. In a way, it seemed right that she was in the world. Like it’s right that there are stars or the sun or something. When you’re a killer, ugly and bloody and beaten to shit, you don’t hate the stars for shining. You’re glad there’s something good out there.
That’s how I felt about Mira.
I pull her closer. “You’re safe, just like you always were,” I whisper before I can think better of it. “Remember? Just an endless green lawn. A blue lake. Soldiers under command to die for you. No worries. Do you remember?”
“Yeah,” she mumbles lazily.
“What was it like?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Don’t you remember?”
“No. You gotta tell me.”
She doesn’t move.
“Come on,” I say. “Tell me.”
After a long silence, she says, “I don’t know.”
“You have to know. Try, baby.”
“It’s a hard question.”
“Try.”
“What?”
“What it was like to feel safe?” I ask, frustrated. I picture her at birthday parties, picnics on the grounds. The boating outings. Plush, wall-to-wall safety.
I just really want to know. I always wanted to know.
“Tell me how it feels,” I press.
It took Konstantin a long time to figure out I squirreled away the photos she was in. When he figured that out, he hit me so hard he nearly knocked my teeth out. That was back when he was bigger than me.
Back when he was in charge.
I think she’s gone to sleep, but then she speaks again. “I can’t describe it. I don’t know. Safety…what does gravity feel like? What does air feel like? I dunno. It just is…” She drifts off. “Dunno....”
She doesn’t know.
Her answer is a fist slammed into my gut—safety is not knowing what safety feels like.
It’s the one answer I never imagined, but it’s obvious now. You can’t describe what safety is when it’s all you’ve known. When you’ve never been moved in the middle of the night because of a crackle on the phone or a light in the alley. You never had an itchy fake mole put on your chin or got whacked upside the head for trying to pick it off.
Safety is walking down the street without having to worry that someone back there recognized you.
Safety is never thinking about safety.
You’d think with all that safety she’d be weak, but she’s strong.
I pull her closer. Is that where her optimism comes from? If she lost her safety, would the optimism go, too?
“Do you feel safe now?” I ask.
“Yes,” she whispers. Her breathing evens out, but then it changes, gets ragged. “Except Dad killed your parents.” She’s getting agitated. “He killed them. In front of the babies…”
“It’s okay now,” I whisper.
“We’re supposed to have each other’s backs,” she says.
I hold her more tightly. Even in her fucked-up state, she cares about rules. She wants people to be good. She wants to think we’re all not animals.
She says, “My mom had my back, but she died.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“Got cancer.” She’s doing that uneven breathing again. Stupid of me to not think about that. Like I’m the only person who lost something.
“I bet she loved you a lot,” I say. “I bet your mother loved you so much.”