Page 133 of Relentless Sinner

“There’s a lot, and now that I’m the Pakhan there’s no telling what could happen in the future.”

A cold chill settles in my stomach. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I’m going to send you to Russia to get you off your father’s radar. When I find him and deal with him, you can come back to New York and go to med school. But… you won’t come back here.”

I drop his hand at the same time my heart cracks, and I stand. I stare at him as shock, disbelief, and confusion consume me.

He rises to his feet, too, towering over me and seeming taller and more foreboding, like a nightmare.

“No…” The word puffs out of me on the edge of a shaky breath.

“Yes. I’ll buy you a house near campus, and we… we can stay married until you turn twenty-five, then you’ll be able to claim your inheritance.”

“What about you? Don’t you need me for that?” That’s how this started. How we began—as a contract.

Jaxon steps forward and takes my hands. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“It wasn’t about the money. At first, maybe. But I loved you from the first moment I saw you.”

The world around me falls away, swallowed by the weight of the words he just spoke. A deep ache spreads across my heart while my mind scrambles to process his bitter-sweet confession.

“Then don’t let me go.”

“Gabriella, it’s because I love you why I need to let you go. You’re not safe with me. I was selfish for trying to keep you. You would have been safer if I’d let you run from me when you tried to escape.”

“I didn’t want to love you.”

“I didn’t want to love you, either, but it was all I could do. Please understand. If you don’t want to end up like your mother, then you can’t be with me.”

For a moment I’m suspended between disbelief and the searing clutches of reality whispering to me that he’s right.

He’s right, but I don’t want him to be.

The fact that he knew my worries about my mother speaks in droves. I’ve never voiced those fears to him, but I think it’s obvious to assume I’d be worried about that.

The irony of the situation now is that I don’t want to leave him. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to be without him.

He reaches forward and touches my face. “If I could stop being Jaxon Bortsov and give it all up just to have you, I would do it in a heartbeat. But that’s not an option for me. I can’t run away from myself, and I would never want to live some kind of nomad life and stop you from getting your dreams. You don’t have to be part of the Bratva. Or part of me.”

“You’re my husband. What if I want to be with you?”

“I can’t let you do that, Gabriella. Us together… it was just a dream.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. And this is the way it has to be.”

A tear slides down my cheek. Another follows. Then it feels like my soul is weeping.

He dries my tears, but I can barely see him through the blur as more come.

“You’ll go to my father’s house later today. It’s easier to keep an eye on both of you in one place. Then you’ll fly out to Russia tomorrow night.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“You have to. This isn’t up for discussion. My decision is final. This is what I have to do to give you a normal life.”

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