Day twenty-four…

It’s nine a.m. Willow has a concussion and she gets dizzy when she walks, so she’s been taking it easy in bed the last couple of days. I’ve been busy with our final project, which is unfolding over the next few days, but my craving for her is distracting me again, so I finally give in to it.

If I let myself be with her like a normal man, sleeping with her every night, spending time with her every day, if I didn’t force myself to stay away from her for days on end…I wouldn’t be consumed with these fits of desire that pull me away from urgent business. But if I did that, I’d grow accustomed to the peace and lightness that only she can grace me with. And I can never do that.

She’s sitting up in bed, propped up on a mountain of pillows. The right side of her face is swollen and splotched purple and blue. Helenka, Yuri and Anastasia are sitting with her. Yuri’s holding a storybook that he must have been reading to her. I see some drawings on her night-table that are clearly Lukas’ work. That kid’s got talent, it can’t be denied. Of course, Willow was the one to spot it; she sees the best in everybody.

Willow manages a weak smile. The rest of them look at me warily. We’ve reached a shaky truce. Vilyat’s dead, but after months of being on the run and jumping at every shadow, they don’t feel safe yet. So they’re back at my house for now, but not my prisoners any longer. Of course, they still don’t fully trust me. That’s smart; their instincts are right on track. I’m not a man who should be trusted.

“You guys run along,” Willow says to them. “I’ll see you after lunch.”

They stand up. “Watch yourself,” Helenka says to me. “I’ve got my eye on you. I know where you sleep.”

I do admire her fiery spirit. Even if she is a Toporov. “Fair warning. I sleep very lightly. With a gun under my pillow.”

She snorts. “Jasha says it’s stupid to brag about things like that. Why tell your enemies what you have prepared for them?”

“If Jasha told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?”

“Only if I knew I could land directly on you,” Helenka says smartly. She and Yuri laugh and high five each other.

They file out of the room, and I settle down next to Willow. She has circles under her eyes and the bruises are really in bloom now, dark against her pale skin.

I trace them very lightly with my fingertips. “How are you feeling?”

“Forget about me. How are you feeling? Now that he’s gone?”

She looks at me searchingly. There’s genuine concern in her eyes. Even lying in her bed like this, in pain, dizzy, she is worried about me rather than herself.

After everything I’ve done to her.

She should loathe the sight and smell of me.

But she doesn’t. She can’t. Her heart is so strong, she’s still her good self, even after exposure to a toxin like me.

I smile at her gently. “A burden that I have been carrying for years has been lifted from me.” I lean in and brush my lips across hers. Her lips part with a soft moan.

Blood rushes to my groin and makes me stiff and achy with need, so I move back. If she weren’t injured, I’d take her right here, rough and hard.

“So that’s it?” she says to me. “The end of your mission?”

There’s a couple more loose ends that will be taken care of shortly, but the less she knows about my business, the safer she is.

“All wrapped up with a nice little bow.”

She leans against me, her head resting on my shoulder. Sweet and soft and trusting. “Stay with me? Just for a little while?”

I shouldn’t, but with Willow, my behavior has never been rational. Not since the first moment I saw her, badly hidden behind a cluster of potted palms in her uncle’s house. Slim, trembling, eyes huge with fright. Something about her called to me on an animal level, and I fell into her web without even realizing it. I stalked her like prey, but who’s the prisoner now?

Ever since that day, I’ve been lying to myself. I lied to myself when I demanded that her uncle give me one of his children as collateral. I always knew it would be Willow who’d submit her tender flesh to me as a sacrifice. I lied to myself when I told myself that I’d destroy her just for fun, as collateral damage in my war against the Toporov men. I lied to myself when I pretended to believe that it would be easy to walk away from her when I was finished with my campaign of revenge.

And now look where my lies have gotten me.

Hopelessly obsessed with the kindest, strongest women I’ve ever met, and with no hope of a future for us. It’s a horrible fate that I richly deserve.

Always a glutton for punishment, I peel back the covers and slide into bed next to her, pulling her slim body up against mine. I wrap my arms around her and breathe in her honeyed scent. Her small, round butt is pressed up against my crotch, and my erection throbs in response.

“How did you find me at Vilyat’s trailer?” she murmurs. “You didn’t follow us there. So how?”

I dodge the question. “I’m good at what I do.” I stroke her slender arm, trailing my fingers along her silky-smooth skin.

She won’t let me distract her. She shakes her head, her hair rustling on the pillow. “No, that’s not an answer. I know what you’ve done. I even know when.”

“Is that so.”

“After you went crazy and sent in that nurse to treat me…she gave me some kind of shot and knocked me out. You had a GPS tracker implanted in me while I was unconscious. That’s how you found us in Ohio – you always knew where I was. From the minute I ran away.”

She’s a clever girl. “Maybe,” I acknowledge.

“So why did you wait two months to come get me? All that talk about how much you needed me. Either you wanted me back or you didn’t. It doesn’t make sense.”

I shift in the bed and sit up again, avoiding her gaze. I don’t want to answer her, because it exposes a weakness, and I despise weakness. But she deserves the truth – as much as I can afford to give her, anyway.

“Because you terrify me, Willow. Since the day I lost Pyotr, I haven’t let myself need anything or anyone. And then you came into my life, and when you aren’t with me, your absence burns the thoughts from my brain. I hoped that with time, my desire for you would fade, but it got worse. Every single minute of every single day, I ached for you, until I couldn’t take it anymore.”

She manages a shaky laugh. “That’s equal parts romantic and demented.”

“An apt description of me, I imagine. Actually, that’s giving myself too much credit in the romance part of the equation.”

“So. The GPS tracker. Where in my body is it?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

She stiffens with resentment, turning her battered face towards me. “It’s my body, so yes, it does matter. Take it out.”

I bark a disbelieving laugh. “Hello, my name is Sergei. I thought you knew me, but apparently you don’t know me at all. I don’t take orders from anyone.”

She lets out a sigh of exasperation. “All right, I will ask you nicely then. Please take your spy device out of my body. Sir.”

Oh, I missed hearing that. But I’m not going to budge.

I stare into her blue-gray eyes. “No. It’s how I keep you safe.”

“It’s how you keep me under control!”

I shrug. “Does it matter why? It’s not coming out.”

Her gaze drops, and she shifts in bed, turning her back to me. This should be my signal to go, but I can’t summon up the will to leave her. Not yet.

We lie in silence for several minutes, and I watch her chest rise and fall.

I think she’s fallen asleep, but then she rolls over and looks at me again, her eyes drooping with exhaustion.

“I want you to know, when you punished me…I was a willing participant,” she murmurs. “You like to hurt me. I like pain. I was horrified to realize that, and I tried to blame you for creating that perverse desire, but it’s not your fault. It’s just how I’m made. Pain gives me pleasure. I don’t ever want you to feel bad about it.”

I won’t let myself off the hook that easily. Neither should she. “Hurting your flesh was all right, because I knew it was what you wanted and needed. Hurting your feelings wasn’t.”

“No, it wasn’t,” she agrees. “But I think we’re better now. The two of us, together. I know you hate to hear me say nice things to you, but too bad. I forgive you for the things that you did, and I understand your motivation, even if you shouldn’t have done it. And I appreciate everything that you did for my family. I don’t think you even let yourself acknowledge how generous you are. You act like being decent is a character flaw, but it’s not. All those things you’ve done for people, for no motive other than giving them what you knew they needed? It means that you didn’t let my family corrode your soul. They lost. You won. You’re still good.”

That snatches my breath away, and I sit in stunned silence. Once upon a time, those words would have sent me into a burning rage, but that was before I met Willow. Now, I can let her stroke salve onto my wounded soul and not lash back.

How did she look into the toxic wasteland inside me, and see the bright shining threads of humanity still glowing? Only she could have done that. Nobody else.

I close my eyes, and realize that there are tears burning my lids.

“Thank you,” I husk, floating in a sea of gratitude and sorrow. I don’t dare move. Time passes as I drift in a bubble, weightless and without care.

“What happens now?” she asks me. And I crash back to earth, and it’s every bit as painful as I imagined.

“We take it one day at a time,” I say, and kiss her forehead.

But I’m lying. Because I’m filth. Lower than low.

I already know what’s going to happen. Soon, I will have to do a terrible thing to her.

To the woman I love.

I admit that now. I’ve fallen in love with her. I need to leave now, to carry on my plan. I need to keep moving forward, through the pain and the self-hatred and the nuclear fallout I’ll create with my final betrayal.