Page 84 of Kings of Cruelty

I will never, ever abandon them.

I will be the father I never had.

I go to her, sitting on the bed next to her before pulling her into my lap. I bury my face against her neck, breathing in her scent and trying to calm the fuck down.

She starts to tentatively stroke my hair, and I let her. “Hey,” she says, her voice quiet and cautious.

I don’t answer. I cling to her, though, feeling like a child for it but unable to make myself pull away.

This isn’t like me.

This isn’t like me at all.

But maybe it’s time for me to stop running away from the truth, frommytruth, and finally admit to myself that I’ve been fucked over by life for so long that it doesn’t even surprise me anymore.

“Don’t leave,” I mumble to her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sierra tells me. She snorts. “I should, but the three of you are too deep under my skin. I’m not…” Sighing, she goes quiet for several long moments, to the point where I’m sure she’s not going to continue talking. Then she says, “I couldn’t.”

“Good,” I say. “I’m not leaving either.”

That seems to take her aback, because she’s silent again. Thinking, probably. Trying to make sense of this mess I’ve thrown her into without warning. “Is that what this is about? Thinking someone wants you to leave? Because I don’t think they do.”

I shake my head, still unable to bring myself to pull back and meet her gaze. “No. No, I don’t either.”

I sure as fuck hope not, anyway, because I am all in no matter what my piece of shit father says.

Fuck him for trying to get me to turn my back on Konstantin. I’d say I don’t care what reasons he gives, but that would imply he’d given me any reason at all—not that I think anything he could’ve said would’ve changed my mind.

I need to talk to Konstantin because somewhere in those words was a warning I can’t make sense of, but I can’t bring myself to move away from Sierra.

“You want to talk about it?” Sierra eventually asks, stroking my hair.

No. Not really. But I find myself saying anyway, “He’s such a dick, Sierra.”

“Around here, you’ll have to be more specific,” she says, and despite the dry humor in her voice, her tone is gentle.

I snort, relieved for the break in my misery. “My dad.”

“Ahh,” she says, and strange as it is, I think she understands even though she’d seemed to be all over him. “I never told you,” she murmurs, as though reading what I’m thinking, “that I was only trying to find out why he’s dressing up. I forgot to tell you and Kotya both.”

I blink up at her. “You were what?”

I think back to the day in town, when she’d been flirting with my father hard enough to make me want to gag, and I realize that I’d missed something that should’ve been obvious.Her carefully laid questions… and the way he’d pegged her as too clever for her own good.

She nods. “But tell me what happened this time. I’ve never seen you this upset.”

I breathe out, kissing her throat again. It would be so easy to get distracted with her body, and it’s tempting to do that. But there’s something in me that’s bursting to get out, and I can’t stop myself from saying, “He wants me to get out. Leave town, or some shit. He hates Kotya.” My lips twist into a sneer. “Not as much as I hatehim.”

“Yeah, he didn’t seem like father of the year material,” she says quietly.

I laugh at that. “You could say that. Or you could say that he was an abusive piece of shit who barely even tolerated me. My mother… She ran off, left both of us behind.” I grip her upper arms. “You have to promise not to do that, Sierra. You can’t leave us all behind.”

“If I leave, the baby’s coming with me,” she says too calmly, calmly enough to where I wonder if she’s thinking of leaving.

“Thanks, I think,” I tell her, my voice barely shy of bitter.

Shrugging, Sierra replies, “If Kotya pulls that shit again, and if you two decide to go along with it, I’m out. I’m not going to be a part of that. I don’t care what I have to do.”

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