Page 92 of Vitaly

“Has that stopped us before?”

I sigh, letting myself melt into his arms for a blissful three seconds before pulling away. “If you aren’t careful, you could ruin this.”

“Iamcareful.” He lets his eyes dance around my face before pushing sweaty hair behind my ear. “I just needed to make sure you were okay. No one followed me, I promise. I have no phone. I have a different car… It’s okay.”

He just needed to make sure I was okay.

The look that he gives me, concerned, searching for the pain I carry inside, tries to tug me closer to him. I don’t allow it. Not because I don’t want to, but because I know if I let him hold me in my pain, I’ll never crawl back out of it. Vitaly makes me weak in a way no one else can. He unlocks emotion I work so hard to bury.

I can’t have that now.

“I won’t be okay until Nikita is dead,” I say, my tone even.Strong. My father would’ve been proud of the tears I haven’t shed.

Vitaly frowns. “Revenge is everyone’s first choice, but it’s rarely the treatment that heals.”

My fingers curl as I take a step back. “Are you saying Nikitashouldn’tdie for what he’s done?”

He shakes his head. “That isn’t what I’m saying.”

“Then what the fuck are you saying?” My voice booms off the walls, too loud, too angry. Vitaly isn’t the enemy, but for a moment, it feels like he might be.

He doesn’t answer right away, and I realize it’s because he’s waiting for me to calm myself. I uncurl my fingers and hug my sides, pinching my lips as I wait for him to go on.

“Please don’t misunderstand… If I found out he was responsible for my mother’s death, I would kill him for it. If he’d killed you yesterday, I would kill him for that. I’m not telling you I’m above revenge or that Nikita doesn’tdeserveto die. I’m saying if I did it, it would be out of anger, and anger never takes away grief.”

“It isn’t anger,” I spit. “It’s justice.”

Vitaly’s jaw tics. “And what justice doIdeserve, Mila?”

I groan. “I already told you, what happened to your father wasn’t?—”

“Did you know there’s a caste system in prison?”

I close my mouth.

“I’ll spare you some of the details, but let me just say, I wasnota part of the organized crime caste. It turns out my name meant nothing. In fact, twice in my first week, two people tried to shank me. Not a coincidence, I imagine.”

He clears his throat while a shiver runs up my spine. His tone is … I don’t know. I don’t like it. This is the first time he’s being open about prison, but suddenly, I don’t know that I want to hear whatever he’s about to say.

“So I came into prison as an eighteen-year-old pretty boy who hadtwo differentassassination attempts my first week.Things did not look good for me, Mila. I want you to understand that. There’s the lowest caste system—roosters—and it’s the last you want to be in. Once you’re there, you’re in it for life. One of the ways to get there is by being raped.”

My eyes widen, imagining the worst, but Vitaly shakes his head.

“Nope. Not what you’re thinking. It didn’t happen to me, but a man from another caste system, agoat, tried because the guards wanted to make money off of me by whoring me out. I stuck a screw in his eye before shoving my fist down his throat until he suffocated.”

He pauses a few moments, as if I have anything to say to that, before he goes on. “And that is howIbecame a goat, which is what someone who does the guards’ and warden’s bidding is called. If they felt a prisoner might have money or family with money, they assigned one of us to torture them until they paid to keep us off their back. We whored out the younger and weaker ones. And we kept the other prisoners in a constant state of distress, just to make sure everyone was in line. In exchange, we received extra food, medical care, and safety.”

When Vitaly steps closer to me, the fiery look in his eyes makes me want to backpedal. But I hold still anyway. I want to prove to him that he doesn’t scare me, even though right now, he does. A little. Only because I’m thinking about all the things I must not know.

“I know Nikita is cruel.” Vitaly’s gaze softens ever so slightly. “Everything he’s done to you makes me sick… But if you knew half the things I’ve done, you would see that my actions are hardly different. I like to think I’m a better man, but I’m not innocent, Mila. No one is, not even you. So let’s not call it justice. If there was justice in our world, we’d all be dead. Let’s call it anger-motivated revenge, and let’s do it knowing when it’s allsaid and done, our fathers will still be dead, and we’ll always have those holes to fill.”

I stand still for several moments, letting his words sink in. Deep down, I know he’s right, but I don’t want to believe it. I want to believe killing Nikita will make the pain go away. That my father will be avenged, and my grief will ease.

But in the end, it was my hand that killed my father. My actions. My thrust of the blade. In a way, Vitaly is right... To bring my father justice, I’d have to kill myself. To bring many people justice, I’d have to kill myself.

I can’t think of that right now.

Shaking away the thoughts, I narrow my eyes. “Call it whatever you want, Vitaly. It just has to be done.”

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