Ravaged Throne: A Russian Mafia Romance (Solovev Bratva #2)(33)

“I won’t let him,” I say fiercely.

She looks at me and a smile flits over her lips. She’s managed to stave off the tears. But just barely.

She reaches up and cups the side of my face. “You remind me a lot of him, you know.”

“Do I?” I ask. “I didn’t think I was anything like him.”

“When you started this, no. But now… I can see it.”

“Is that a good thing?”

She nods. “Pavel was the best man I knew. He restored my faith in people.”

I take a step back. As much as I’ve missed Ariel, being around her is hard, too. The weight of our shared loss is too much to bear sometimes. And being with her reminds me of it constantly.

In many ways, I’ve moved on from that day. I’ve learned to cope.

But I’m not sure Ariel has.

“Once I’ve avenged his death—their deaths,” she corrects softly. “I won’t have a purpose anymore.”

“You can start again. Fresh. Free from all this.”

“Start what again? I don’t know if I even want to.”

“You don’t have a choice, Ariel,” I tell her. “It’s death or survival.”

“Death doesn’t seem so bad,” she whispers. “At least I’ll see him again.”

I shake my head. “Don’t say that.”

“You have something to live for, Leo,” she tells me. “A wife, a child. You have a future. But I don’t.”

“But you could if you wanted it. Do you think Pavel would begrudge you meeting someone else and moving on?” I ask. “I know that’s what my brother would want for you. It’s what I want for you.”

She just shakes her head. There’s no arguing with that kind of solemnity, that certain. “I can’t be happy without him. I realized that a long time ago.”

She turns towards the window and stares at the dark clouds overhead. It’s started snowing. I can see the tumbling flakes reflected in Ariel’s eyes like ash falling from a fire in the sky.

“She loves you, you know?” she says suddenly.

I snort. “She doesn’t know how she feels.”

“I’ve looked into that woman’s soul,” she says. “She is in love with you. Even if she doesn’t want to be.”

I almost smile at that.





13





WILLOW





All my fears seem to culminate in the darkness.

I try to fall asleep, but the room is so dark I can’t tell when my eyes are opened or closed. It feels like I’m tumbling heels over head into a black hole, being swallowed alive by empty space.

But somewhere between anger and hopelessness, I manage to drift off.

And when I do, I see so many things.

My son.

My parents.

I see all the people that used to inspire fear in me: Casey, Brit, Belov. They’re all moving images, rolling around inside my head, reminding me how far off-track I’ve gotten.

Accept it.

Her voice is as commanding and impatient in my dreams as it was in real life.

I twist in the bed. As comfortable as it is, I feel like I’m being pricked by needles from every angle. When I manage to find a bearable spot, it doesn’t stay that way for long.

Accept it.

I hear his crying between flashes of nightmares.

It’s been days since I held him, touched him, talked to him. What if he forgets me? What if he only remembers that I abandoned him to a woman whose body can’t bend into a hug?

Children need to be hugged.

Children need to be kissed and loved.

“Accept it.”

“I don’t fucking want to!” I yell, turning to her as she stands there, invading my space.

My hand trembles over my burgeoning belly and all I can think, irrational as it may be, is: I wish that Leo was here. I wish I were with him now.

“Your name is the only reason you’re alive right now,” Anya says.

“Everyone keeps fucking telling me that. I’m sick of hearing it. I’m so, so sick of hearing it.”

I remember thinking she was beautiful when I first stepped into that car and encountered her. Her hair was raven-dark like mine. Her eyes had the same blues and grays as mine. The same sadness. The same distance.

“Don’t be a fool. That baby will inherit your name,” she replies. “You need to do more than just accept your name; you need to embrace it.”

“I am not a Mikhailov,” I snap. “And I’m not a Solovev, either. I am a Powers. Willow Powers.”

A flicker of irritation flashes across her eyes. “I chose those idiots because I knew they’d be good to you,” she says. “But now, I think they may have been too good to you.”

I try to suppress my desire to recoil. What kind of woman says something like that to the daughter she gave up? She doesn’t seem to even realize how hurtful those words are. How they slice me open along the same scars that have been building on my heart for years.

“What does that even mean?” I ask.

“It means you’re weak. Soft. You’re a victim.”

I stare at her in disbelief.

Anya strokes her chin. “Maybe it was a mistake. I thought giving you a normal life was my gift to you. But I see now how na?ve I was. They would have found you in the end.”