Page 123 of Dmitri

My heart rips in half. I think my soul just left my fucking body.

Swiping the tears off her face, I clear my throat and try toremain steady. “You’re not going to lose either of us. But it’s time you put your sword down, Daelyn. For just one day, lay it down.” I kiss her cheeks, nose, chin, eyes, and finally her mouth. “It’s okay,” I whisper.

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”

She starts closing up on me again. “No. I’m not willing to risk it.”

“It’s not your risk to take, Firefly.” I tip her chin. “Your only priority should be taking care of yourself and Addie. Let me handle the rest.”

Daelyn shakes her head. “My head is so messed up.” Her nails dig into my shoulders while she clings to me. “I know it’s far-fetched, but he’s got to be wrong about you, which doesn’t make sense, because Kaleb’s never wrong.”

Boom. I just got what I needed.

“Not ever?” I say, rolling with the convo, not giving any hints that she just dropped his name.

“No. He’s way too calculating for it. He never makes a move without knowing the next three already. He sets things up way in advance. He says you’re the killer.”

“Did he say he saw me commit the murder?”

Daelyn shakes her head. “I didn’t ask. His dad is a touchy subject.” She runs her fingernails up and down my back, over some of my scars, like it soothes her. “Maybe his dad was in a cage fight with you and died of injuries later?”

“It’s possible.” My brain’s going a mile a minute, grasping at straws. Although I’d like to think Silas would have told me if someone I fought in the cage died later from their injuries, he probably wouldn’t have, just to spare me the guilt. Mentally tracking every opponent is a no go, considering I’ve blacked out more than once at the Scrapyard. I have no clue how many men I’ve knocked down. Now I feel sick. I could be a murderer.Fuckme.

No. I’d have found out if I killed someone. Right? Shit. Okay, I need to piece this together with some dates so I can at least narrow down my list of potential victims. “How old was he when his dad died?”

“Thirteen.”

Whoa. Hold up. “How old is he now?”

“Twenty-nine.”

Quick math says I definitely was not beating grown ass men to death when I was sixteen.

And this guy is older than Daelyn by four years. A little more math and it finally dawns on me why she’s been protective of him. “He was your first love.”

“Yes.” She cautiously looks at me like a child in trouble. “He was my person. My safe space. But…” Her brow crinkles and she clamps her mouth shut.

“But what?”

It takes her forever to speak again. While my patience wears thin, I hold her and wait. Pushing Daelyn for answers will only make her close up more. She has to do this on her own.

“Sometimes I lay awake at night and pull out all the fragments of myself,” she finally says, sinking into my embrace. “I look at each piece and try to remember why it’s there. How it came to be that way.” She sniffles and wipes her nose. “I look at the things he’s done, the things he says, his reasons and logic for dragging me along, and I see why there are so many torn up parts of me. It’s because he ripped them up that way.” Daelyn blows out a long sigh. “I always owed him. That’s what he’d say. I owed him because he’d helped me. I owed him because without him, I’d still be miserable. I owed him because he kept me safe. Then he’d send me out to do something that put my life in danger and would look me dead in the eyes and say, ‘don’t you trust me, Dae? Do you really think I’d send you out thereif it wasn’t safe? Come on, babygirl, you know me better than anyone.’ And I’d trust him to have my back, and I’d do whatever he sent me out for. If I push back or question his orders, he stonewalls or gaslights me. Manipulates my words, fears, and feelings until I cave. Then he beats me for making him have to do that to me, just so I’ll listen and obey.”

My vision hazed red at the beginning of her story, and right now there’s a terrible ringing in my ears. I’m locked onto each word, every motherfucking syllable, coming from her sweet mouth like it’s a cliff I’m hanging onto for dear life and it’s crumbling under my grip. If I fall, I’ll undoubtably shatter.

Black out.

Tear the world apart.

“Deep down, I know he’s not my safe space. He never was.”

My heart’s thudding too hard against my ribs. I can’t take a full breath.

“Chaos is my comfort zone. I don’t think I know how to live in a calm, safe space. I don’t trust it.”

“Makes sense,” I say, stroking her hair. “If you’ve always been in high stress environments, leaving it can make you feel lost and scared.”

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