Page 44 of Endless Love

“No, but you—” She pauses again, clearly struggling for what to say. “You hurt them.”

“Didn’t you hear what they offered me?” I drive another stake in, hard. “What they would have done to you? I had no other choice.”

“They’re your brothers.” Charlotte sits down heavily as I finish setting up the tent, looking at the spot where I’ll build a fire in a moment. “I just?—”

“I know you can’t imagine it.” I move next to her, where the campsite’s firepit is, and start to stack wood and take out the kindling. “But, Charlotte?—”

This is it,I realize. We’ll be in Vegas before too much longer, and we’re going to have to make fast time over the next few days. I relented tonight, because Charlotte wanted so badly to go camping, and I wanted to give her that experience. If I’m being honest, I wanted toshareit with her. I wanted to be here, with her, out in the woods all alone together, grasping for the glimmers of romance in this moment.

But what this really is, is a chance to tell her the rest of the truth. What I am, what I’ve done. The kind of man I’ve been. Because, after all, I’ve been asking her if it would be real if we were together again, without actually letting her see all of what that would look like.

Even if she said yes, it couldn’t be the truth unless she knowsallof the truth. And so, I drag in a deep breath, looking over at her as the wood starts to catch fire.

“There’s more that I should tell you,” I say quietly. “If you’re willing to listen.”

20

CHARLOTTE

If you’re willing to listen.

There’s a part of me that wants to say no. That wants to push him away. I don’t know if I want to hear this, if I want more of my worldview to be challenged, if I want to hear the rest of the terrible skeletons in Ivan’s closet.

But I can also see this for what it is. I know we’re not far from our destination, not far from the place where my identity will be scoured clean, and I’ll be cut loose to do as I please, a new woman with a new identity, and a terrifyingly blank slate for a life. This is Ivan, baring himself to me, stripping himself not only naked but raw, and asking me to listen. To hear him tell me who he really is, at last.

For better or for worse.

I nod slowly, wrapping my fingers together as if they’re cold. The fire is surprisingly adequate against the chill, actually, but I need to do something with my hands. “Okay,” I say softly. “Tell me.”

“I told you that I was my father’s enforcer,” he says, his voice low and rough. “But I’m not sure you know what that means, really.”

“You said you enforced his rules. I assume with violence.” I twist my fingers tighter together, feeling the quick beat of my pulse form a ball of dread in my stomach. “I assume—a lot of violence.”

“I gathered information for him.” Ivan swallows hard, the movement of his throat visible in the firelight. “Lev is cruel and vicious, but he lets that brutality run away with him. I’m capable of controlling my emotions, precise and detached. I don’t take pleasure in pain the way he does. And that’s what—” He swallows again, his fingers digging into his jeans at the knee as he looks straight ahead at the flames. “That’s what a man who tortures other men for the Bratva needs to be able to do.”

A chill that has nothing to do with the temperature runs down my spine. I can’t even repeat what I just heard aloud. “Oh,” I whisper softly, my throat so tight that I’m half afraid I won’t even be able to speak. “That’s?—”

“Horrible. Beyond what you imagined, I’m sure. And it wore on me. You remember that I told you I didn’t kill that mountain lion, when I went on that trip?” He waits for me to nod, and then continues. “I’d gotten so tired of death, Charlotte. So exhausted with violence.”

“But you did it. For a long time.” I try to keep the judgment out of my voice, but it’s difficult. I can’t imagine being willing to do that. I can’t imagine what it would take for someone to be faced with that task, and not run in horror. What kind of person it takes to do it.

“I was horrified at first. But there was no way out. I was seventeen then, and there was no running from my father. No money that belonged to me, no path to freedom.” Ivan’s jaw tightens, and I feel a sudden pang of guilt at my own judgment.

“Seventeen? That’s—that’s awful.” I sink my teeth into my lip. I can’t comprehend the kind of father who would tell his teenage son to do that. The type of world Ivan has beenimmersed in. We’re from two such different lives—we might as well be from different planets.

And yet we’re both sitting here, in the cold October night, the world silent except for the two of us, as if we’re the only ones that exist at this moment.

“It’s normal, for Bratva.” Ivan blows out a sharp breath. “In time, I became numb to it. And then the fact that I was numb became horrifying, in its own way. I started to think of a way out. I started to make plans, seek out my own contacts, lay a foundation to escape. It took years. Enough blood that I can’t ever stop seeing it. But eventually, I was close. And then I found out that my father had started trafficking women.” He turns his hands over, palms up, lifting them and dropping them again. “I couldn’t leave that alone. I couldn’t run, knowing that new horror was something my family was a part of. So, I set out to stop him. I made a deal with the FBI. Information, for my own record wiped clean, and a new identity. All of my money was transferred over to accounts I could still use afterward. A clean slate for me, and my father’s operation brought down.”

“But you hadn’t managed it yet.” I think of Bradley, saying that Ivan hadn’t brought him enough.

Ivan shakes his head. “I was close,” he says quietly. “But I also got distracted.”

The emphasis on the last word leaves no doubt as to what he means. “With me.”

He nods. Slowly, he angles himself towards me, his chiseled silhouette glinting in the firelight as he looks at me. “You were the one thing I didn’t account for, Charlotte,” he says quietly. “The thing I didn’t plan. I went to Masquerade that night because it was a place I went with my friends. Somewhere, I could blow off steam without anyone knowing who I was. There, I wasn’t a bastard son of the Bratva, or Dima Kariyev’s torturer, or an FBI informant. I was just a man, seeking pleasure, likeeveryone else there. I planned to go there, enjoy myself, and leave, like every other night.”

He draws in a slow breath, looking down at his hands. “I’ve never tried to find the identity of anyone I met there before. I’ve never tracked downanywoman, the way I tracked you.” He swallows hard, and I can tell that he can’t quite meet my eyes. “You caught me off guard. I can’t even entirely explain why. The reasons you were there, the way you reacted to me, the sounds?—”

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