Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“I know it’s not the frigging time,” Mack replies. “But Jesus, Talia. What the hell are you thinking right now? Of course you can’t go back there. Look at you. You’re a goddamn mess. For once in your life, think. Fucking think about this baby that you’re bringing into the world. About what’s best for him.”
And I don’t know why, but I laugh. Because maybe this is what I need. My anger. Maybe Mack is doing me a favor by picking a fight with me right now.
“So let me get this straight,” I reply. “You can marry into the mob, but I can’t? How does that work exactly?”
“My husband isn’t an abusive asshole,” she states. “Look at you. Look at what he did to you. You can barely hold it together.”
“You don’t know him,” I snap. “So why don’t you… for once in your life… quit judging everyone else around you, huh? I was like this long before Alexei ever came into my life. If anything, he put me back together.”
I don’t mention that he broke me too. Because they can both see it. But Mack is determined to argue.
“I’m not judging you, I’m stating a fact. You always assumed the worst of me, Tal. But all I’ve ever done was try to protect you.”
“No, all you’ve ever done is try to get me to be exactly like you,” I yell at her. “To think like you. Act like you. Do as Mack would do with all her high morals and bullshit. You are such a fucking hypocrite.”
She blinks at me, stunned, but I’m not finished. It’s time we got this out, once and for all.
“You pride yourself on your loyalty to your friends, but you don’t even know them.”
“I know you better than anyone,” she snaps.
“No, you don’t. You refused to listen to me. When I tried to tell you the dark things about myself. You just didn’t want to accept them as a part of me. But that isn’t the way life works, Mack. You have to accept the bad in people too. Like Scarlett. Like me.”
“What does Scarlett have to do with this?”
“You don’t even know what she does!” I shout. “When she’s out at night.”
“She sells her body,” she replies. “Everybody fucking knows it.”
“Except she doesn’t.” I look at her and shake my head. “Not at all.”
Mack is stunned, and Lachlan seems uncomfortable with this conversation, but keeps his mouth shut. I’ve always appreciated that about him. That he lets someone speak their piece. And that for once, someone isn’t looking at me like I’m completely crazy.
“She’s a trick roller,” I tell Mack. “She doesn’t fuck men. She robs them. Because it gives her some of the power back that she lost. But you couldn’t ever understand that.”
“I could…” Mack sputters, but the words die off.
“No you couldn’t,” I tell her. “Because you aren’t like us, Mack. I’m sorry, but you’re not. You’re stronger. And you haven’t walked our path. But you judge us for it. You do.”
“I don’t judge,” she whispers.
And then tears spring to her eyes, and I feel guilty for saying it. But it needed to be said.
“You do.”
“Okay, maybe a little, but only because I want what’s best for my friends.”
“But you can’t shame them into it, Mack. You can’t force people to change. To cope with everything the way that you do. People are different. They all deal with things differently. You need to understand that.”
“It’s my fault, isn’t it?” Tears spill down her cheeks when she looks at me. “I pushed you into it. That trip with Dmitri. Because the last time I saw you… we argued.”
“You didn’t push me into it.” I shake my head. “I would have gone regardless.”
“But if I hadn’t been so pushy. So… judgy. And then I asked Alexei to save you.”
“Mack.”
I’m crying too, so it’s the only word I can get out. We both stand up and close the distance between us. Healing all of the hurt and anger with a single hug.
I cry in her arms, and she holds me. And I don’t know how long we stand there like that, but I only know that a piece of my heart feels like it isn’t dead anymore. Like this is exactly where I need to be right now.
It takes me over an hour to say the words. To accept what it is that I need to do.
That I will need to hurt Alexei to protect myself.
And that I will hate myself for it.
But I don’t see any other choice.
“I want to stay here,” I tell Lachlan with a shaky voice. “I’m going to stay here.”
49
Alexei
“Viktor keeps calling,” Nikolai tells me from the passenger seat of the car.
“Ignore it. I will deal with him later.”
“I don’t think it’s about Arman,” he tells me.
He keeps scrolling through his phone, checking through messages and missed calls. And when he tenses beside me, I know something is wrong.