Page 54 of In the Grey of Dawn

Squeezing his hand, I can't help but whisper, “Is this her?” As I tenderly rub my fingers across his knuckles.

“Lila,” he breathes her name as if saying it aloud will conjure her spirit. “She was so innocent to my world that in the end, everything I was trying to protect her from was why she was killed. It was why it was my fault ... I couldn't give her up.”

He practically whispers the last few words.

“What do you mean it was your fault?” I say trying to prompt him further. I'm not sure he has ever spoken about this to anyone and I can feel how his body tenses with each word he says. Trying to calm him I pull his arm around me further so I have his forearm and hand pressed tightly against my chest, gently rubbing my hand across it.

“My father had arranged a marriage to another family, one that I didn't want. I was young and already in love. The best enforcer for generations.

If something needed to be done, I did it, the messier the better. I was invincible and nothing could touch me.

So they found the one thing that would be my undoing and killed me that way. I offended that family when I rejected their offer of marriage. My father called me to his office the night I was going to ask Lila to marry me.

You can't turn the Pakhan down when he calls you, so I met with him and completed the ridiculous errand he wanted me to do. One that any number of the working street runners could have done. I remember thinking it was unusual at the time but my father was always a little odd.

He believed in superstition and it was not unheard of for him to make a strange request. I just brushed it off as being one of those times. It took a little longer than I expected and I arrived home far later than I had planned.

She wasn't watching TV in the lounge or the kitchen when I entered our apartment. The lights were off and I thought she had gone to bed so I took the ring from my pocket, ready to crawl in with her and apologise.

I was going to distract her and slide it on her finger, let her figure out what I was doing.

I was so excited to see her reaction, see how long it would take her to discover my plan before I asked her for her hand.”

Looking up at him I can see a small grin appear as he thinks of her, his love still strong even after all this time. For a moment he is lost in a memory but almost as soon as I spot it, it disappears.

A coldness I've not seen before makes his eyes dull and lifeless as if he's no longer with me. Reaching up, I try to ease the hard crease on his brow before gently bringing my hand down to hold his cheek. A small sigh escapes him as he closes his eyes and leans into my hand, his shoulders relaxing with my touch.

Keeping his eyes closed he takes my hand and brings it across his face, as if he's trying to draw strength from it, making sure we are connected.

Kissing my palm, he lowers his hand to my neck. The stark realisation that all of the times he's held his hand like this as he collects himself, is not an act to control or to dominate me.

I'm only now registering that his fingers press in ever so slightly, searching for my pulse, the steady rhythm of my heartbeat seeming to centre him, confirming there's life flowing beneath his touch.

“I didn't turn on any lights. I didn't want to wake her so I crept over to the couch and took my shoes off. I thought she must have spilt something because the rug was wet but when I turned on the side lamp to get a better look I saw the blood pooling on the floor. My world stopped at that moment.

The life I had planned for us dying along with her. They had hung her from the ceiling, ready for me to see her when I turned the lights on.

They raped her, then hung her from the ceiling to bleed out. Her wrists were cut but they tied the rope under her arms and around her shoulders so her death was slow. Her life slowly faded as each drop of blood left her body.

By the time I found her and cut her down she was a ghost of herself, so pale she was iridescent in the darkness.

I held her until the morning, just me and her while I told her everything I had planned for us. The life we were going to share together. How I had arranged to get the tiny fluffy dog she wanted as a wedding gift. That we could buy whatever house she wanted anywhere in the world.

She knew I didn't want my own kids but I was softening to the idea of fostering. I begged her to come back to me and I'd give her however many children she wanted. Begged her to stay with me just a little longer. Begged her to take me with her, because if she wasn't here with me then I didn't want to be here either.

Dimitriy found me in the morning still holding her cold body. He knew I had planned to propose and had come to celebrate. When he eventually convinced me to let her go it was with the promise of revenge, so I started to plan their demise. Taking the lives of the men who did this was not enough. They had to be destroyed, quashed, eradicated from this world. Their family was not allowed to exist any longer than I would permit them to.

She faded away from this world whilemyfathersummoned me. Stopping my ability to protect her and making his act of betrayal the ultimate sin against our family. His would be the last name on my list. He would know the meaning of punishment by the time I was done with him.”

The way he grits out the wordfathermakes me reel, gasping at the realisation of what he just said, the rapid-fire way my brain puts all of the information together. “Your father, he—”

“He had arranged for me to be busy so they would not be interrupted. He was angry that I rejected the offer as well, that I defied him. So this was his retribution,” he grits out.

“I'm so sorry, Porter. I'm so sorry this happened to you … to her.” I whisper into his chest, trying to get closer to him and comfort him however I can.

For a long moment we just sit here. The sky changes with soft pinks and dark purples as the sun threatens to breach the mountain range in the distance. I continue to run my hand across his chest and down his arm, anywhere I can touch him to let him know he's not alone, that I'm with him.

“She was religious, Lila was, I mean. That jar of blank coins on the mantel, the one you moved. They were a little joke for her, an homage for if she was watching down on me from heaven. She believed you needed to pay for your passage into the afterlife. A lot of different religions have used versions of this for centuries and I wanted to ensure the souls I took in her honour never got close to her again.”

---