Champagne Venom (Orlov Bratva, #1)(58)

"Do you use that same logic with people? You hold the people you care about the most the furthest away?"

“Is this you trying to figure me out again?” I ask. “Because it’s very annoying.”

“Probably because I’m right on the money.” I throw her a glare and she just shoots back a sheepish grin. “I know we’re from completely different worlds, Misha. But I think we have more in common than you think.”

I’m about to tell her I doubt that very much when she reaches out and touches my dog tag. I freeze instantly.

The last time someone touched it—some nameless one-night-stand I forgot as soon as she left—I grabbed her wrist, twisted it back, and warned her never to do it again if she valued her life.

This time, though… it feels different.

Paige is gentle. Her fingers graze the surface like she’s touching a precious stone.

“Like this,” she whispers softly. “You may not call yours an amulet, but I think that’s exactly what it is. Just like mine.” I roll my eyes, and she chuckles under her breath. “Laugh all you want. Sometimes, believing in something gives you strength. Even if it’s total bullshit.”

“That’s exactly what it is.”

She doesn’t even blink. “Clara and I found this piece of metal together in the junkyard. We were used

to finding empty beer cans and used condoms, so coming across this was like discovering buried treasure. Clara took it home that night and polished it up. The next day, when she came over to my trailer, she’d worked a tiny hole into it and threaded it onto some twine. She told me it was my birthday present.”

“And you’ve worn it ever since?”

She shakes her head. “No. I told her that it was magic. Since we’d found it together, we should take turns wearing it. We swapped off every week. Like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, you know?”

She sees my blank expression and laughs, a high, tinkling sound like a wind chime. “It’s this book where—you know what, never mind. I don’t think you’ll get it. Anyway, I’m not saying the pendant is really magic, but it changed our perspectives a little. It gave us… hope. We started looking for the magic in life. Maybe, because we were looking, we found it.”

I hear my brother’s voice in my head. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but I don’t think the content of his words is important. It’s just the fact of him still lingering on the edges of my life that matters. He’s still here—if I don’t look too hard for him, that is.

Paige sighs gently before she continues. “I’m not talking full-blown miracles. Just little things.

Finding a cluster of blueberries in the woods. Getting discounts on the strawberry lip smackers we both loved so much. Making the track team at school.” She shrugs. “All I’m saying is, you hold onto your dog tags the same way I hold onto my pendant.”

“Except I don’t believe mine is magic.”

“Then maybe you need to change your perspective,” she suggests. “Clara used to tell me that the pendant will bring us a miracle one day if we believe hard enough and have the patience to wait for it.”

Her voice is thick with tears. I still don’t know how Clara died, and I’m not going to ask. It feels like venturing too far into her past. Into her heart.

“For a while there, I lost hope,” Paige admits. “But I found it again when your doctor told me I was pregnant. It was the miracle Clara always told me I would find.”

She sighs and reaches for my dog tag again. She nestles it against her palm and gazes down at it. Then she lifts her eyes to mine. “I’d rather believe in something, even if it’s foolish, than believe in nothing at all.”

Then she leans in suddenly and presses her lips to my cheek. It’s a soft kiss, gentle and tender. The kind of kiss that unravels knots and shines light into shadowy corners. The kind of kiss that makes me want to jump out of this bed and put as much distance between us as possible.

“Goodnight, Misha.”

She settles into the bed and pulls the covers up around her chest. Her breathing evens out until it’s deep and slow. Her eyelids flutter and her lips part.

I don’t know how long I stay there and stare at her. But eventually, I slip out of bed and get dressed silently in the dark. I can’t linger here a moment longer. Bit by bit, Paige is worming her way closer

to me. If I don’t stop her, she’ll break through my defenses and head straight for my heart.

Like I said…

Deadly.





43

PAIGE

When I wake up, I’m alone.

Well, not totally alone. Misha isn’t there, but I have his ring on my finger, his teeth marks on the skin above my left breast, and the soreness he left between my legs.

It makes the absence of the rest of him so much worse.

I pull off the sheets and stomp into the bathroom to shower him off of me. I stand under the burning hot spray and wait to feel relaxed. To not feel the ghost of Misha’s hands on my hips and his mouth on my skin.

But that’s the kind of memory I’m not sure I can ever wash away. So I climb out of the shower, get dressed, and stomp right back into the bedroom we’re supposed to share, feeling no better than I did when I left it.