Page 17 of Cashmere Ruin

A flicker of hesitation passes through his eyes.

“Come on, Matik,” Carmine presses. “You don’t want to scare your woman off again, do you?”

“She’s not so easily scared.”

“Mm. Then why did she run?”

Game, set, match.

For a long moment, I’m certain Matvey will lower his gun; and though I’ve just been begging him to do it, suddenly, I’m not so sure he should. Carmine said he wouldn’t harm the baby, but that was before Matvey burst in. What if he no longer needs her, either?

“Because I was an idiot.”

His words jolt me out of my thoughts.

Again, Matvey’s gun is trained on Carmine, but his eyes are on me alone. “I was an idiot,” he repeats. “I lied to her. I could’ve told her the truth from the start, but I didn’t. I just kept lying and lying until she couldn’t take it anymore. I was the lowest of the low. And for that, I’m sorry.”

I can’t believe my ears. All I’ve ever wanted Matvey to say to me, he’s saying here and now, with just one piece missing.

I don’t love her. I loveyou.

“So you forgive her?” Carmine asks, incredulous.

“No.”

That single word chills me to the bone.

“What she did was unforgivable,” Matvey continues, the fire in his eyes hardening to ice. “She lied to me, too. If Yuri hadn’t come clean to save her ass, she would’ve kept lying. She is also the lowest of the low.”

I finally stop hearing Matvey’s words. Because, while my self-loathing would want nothing more than to stab me with them, it’s time I startedlistening.

Matvey’s never been a man of many words, but he’s repeated himself twice now.

Lying and lying. Lowest of the low.

Lying low.

“Do you get it, April?” he presses, something desperate in his eyes. “Canyou get it?”

I raise my head. “Yes.”

Then it happens.

I drop myself down to the floor. The second I do, Matvey’s gun fires.

Carmine howls, dropping the baby.

But I’m ready to catch her. Because Matvey told me this part, too.

Do you get it?Canyou get it?

“I got you,” I whisper to my child. “I got you, baby girl.”

Then I duck under the desk.

I check my baby from head to toe: she’s perfect, unharmed. Crying, but whole. “Thank God,” I sob.

Behind us, bullets are flying every which way. I feel one lodge in the front panel of the desk, right where my left buttock would’ve been. Thank God for mahogany.

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