Where the Sun Hides (Seasons of Betrayal #1)(64)

Kaz chuckled. “No, it’s life. When you depend on others for too much, your happiness, acceptance, or even approval, then you’re already guaranteeing yourself unhappiness, rejection, and dissatisfaction from others and yourself. Better to go on seeking those things from yourself, than expecting others to hand them over to you.”

Violet stared at him for a long while, saying nothing.

“Not what you were expecting?” he asked.

“I was … It makes sense,” Violet said.

“Yeah, the hard lessons usually do.”

“That must have been tough …”

Kaz threw back another drink before facing her. “What’s that?”

“Having to learn that lesson.”

“Is that your way of asking about me?” he questioned, canting his head to the side as he regarded her.

“Only if you’re willing to tell me.”

“Let me tell you a story.” Kaz reached down, pulling her legs onto his lap, his fingers kneading at the muscles in her calves. If he was going to do this, he would need a distraction. “I had a friend once, my best friend I would say. Back when we were younger, he encouraged me to do reckless, outlandish things—he thrilled in the shit. I would be lying if I say I didn’t enjoy it, but not like him. He got off on it.”

Violet was listening, her face turned in his direction and laying back against the couch. And it was clear as he met that curious, worried gaze of hers that she wasn’t just trying to placate him as he talked, but was actually listening. That encouraged him to go on, even if this was one story he refused to share.

Not even Ruslan knew.

“I was young at the time, sixteen thereabout, but we might as well have been men—we knew better—but I was a little shit and wanted the f*ck away from Vasily, and if that meant doing bad shit—” He paused, smiling absently as his hands shifted to one of her feet and he pressed his thumbs into the arch. “—and not like the bad shit I’m a part of now. We smoked weed, drank heavily, and one night he even bought cocaine.

“That night, I was f*cking wired, like I felt nothing, despite how high I was. We were sitting in the car outside of my old space in broad daylight, mind, but who gave a f*ck? I am who I am. But what my friend didn’t tell me was where he’d scored the stuff—and that he hadn’t bothered to pay. Even as young as we were, it was easy for us to get by on names alone—my family is f*cking infamous around these parts.”

Kaz took a breath, holding it for a moment, and then he let it go once her legs shifted in his lap as she drew closer.

“Go on …”

“So we’re sitting and laughing about nothing. It was all good. And maybe,” Kaz said with a shake of his head, “just maybe, if he hadn’t been ten f*cking sheets to the wind, we might have noticed the men walking up. He might have noticed the guns in their hands. And maybe,” said Kaz, his tone softening as he remembered that day, “just maybe, he could have prevented that little girl walking down the street with her mother from taking a bullet that was meant for him.”

He was yanked out of his memories in a flash as Violet straddled his lap, her hands lifting to cradle his face. She looked so concerned in that moment that he almost didn’t finish.

Before he could, she said, “It wasn’t your fault, Kaz. Your friend, whoever it was, he should have been honest with you, or at least not have put you in that situation in the first place.

Ah, that was what he was hoping she would say. “So do you think he was a bad friend?”

She sat back. “Of course.”

“You’re right. I was a terrible friend.”

“I don’t understand.”

Kaz sighed, resting his hands on her waist. “I was him. He was me. I went to the dealer, but didn’t bother paying because the Markovic name was enough to strike fear in any person, but not in him. I was naive on that front, thinking myself beyond reproach, and worse, I knew I was bringing him down with me. And worse than that, someone had to answer for that child—not just to the mother who lost her kid, but to the police as well.”

He could see it in her face just then, her fear as different ideas went through her head as to what might have happened to him as punishment, but as he remembered, he wasn’t the one to suffer for it.

“Vasily made sure that the right people were arrested, but that dealer wasn’t appeased. He wanted someone’s f*cking blood for what happened. He may be a bastard, but my father was never going to turn me over, even to teach me a lesson. To him, they weren’t important enough to seek favor with, but because he owed a boon to their supplier, he compromised. Instead of me, he gave them my friend—even forced me to stick around and watch as they took him away.”

He met Violet’s gaze, letting her see the guilt in his own. “Because of me, two people lost their lives—one of which I care for like a brother. So these friends of yours, the ones that want to blame you for their own shit, cut them off while you can. Sometimes the consequences are much worse.”

“Kaz …”

His name, soft on her lips, was almost enough to make him smile. “You don’t deserve bad friends, Violet. You deserve better than that.”

The silence stretched between them, a heartbeat, even longer. Kaz was almost afraid that she wasn’t going to reply, and was probably thinking exactly what he’d thought of himself since that day.