Page 159 of Cashmere Ruin

“And you put your hands on him,” she bites back. “So I guess you’re even.”

“Like hell we are.”

Suddenly, a shriek pierces my ears. I remember May in my arms. Shit, did I grip her too tight? “Hey?—”

“I’ve got this.” She holds out her hands and the baby goes willingly, hiding her crying face in her mother’s chest. “It’s nothing you did,” she reassures me as if reading my mind. “She’s just sensitive to moods.”

“I didn’t mean to upset her.”

“Yeah.” She presses her lips tight. “Lots of things you didn’t mean to do lately.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Right. Because you’ve been nothing but fair to me.”

I clench my fists at my sides. “April?—”

“I’m tired,” she says. “If there’s nothing else you need, I’m going to bed.”

“I came here to talk,” I say. “I came here to?—”

“To show me the divorce papers?”

I set my jaw. “It’s complicated.”

“No, Matvey. Actually, it’s not complicated at all.”

Shit. This isn’t how this was supposed to go.“April…”

But she’s already heading to the bedroom with the baby. The cat jumps after them. He watches me just long enough to give me the stink eye, then disappears behind the door seconds before it closes.

… Fuck.

48

MATVEY

Change is never easy. But sometimes, it’s necessary. Sometimes, it’s all we have.

So I’m going to do what I have to.

I make my way to Staten Island first thing in the morning. Finding the address is easy: the background check Grisha put together all those months ago still holds true.

It takes me to a trailer park. Again, no surprises.

I step around a heap of trash on the unkempt lawn. It’s a far cry from my five-star hotel, but it isn’t enough to move me to pity, either. I’ve seen worse. I’vebeenworse.

Compared to the snows of Russia, this is paradise.

I stop in front of the right trailer and raise my fist to knock. For a second, though, I hesitate. The old me would never do something like this. No—he’d never even consider it. Matvey Groza, come to apologize? Please. He would find it humiliating, beneath him in every way possible.

But the old me didn’t have April.

There used to be something comfortable in that: having nothing to lose. Having no one. If you’re alone, you can’t be called out, can’t be pushed into a corner by anything or anyone. Can’t be made to look in a mirror and risk hating what you see.

Once, I would have sworn by that life. I thought it was the only kind of life worth having. No one to answer to, no responsibilities to anyone but yourself. No one to come home to.

Now, I can’t bear the thought of it.

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