Page 89 of Defiled Innocence

“I’m taking you somewhere, let’s go.” He holds out my jacket for me so I can slip my arms in.

“Where?” Maybe to the attorney’s office to sign divorce papers.

He can get anything done, and if he wants me out of his life, he can make it happen in a blink of an eye.

He drops his hands a little and takes a breath. Is he trying to compose himself?

The control is there in his eyes, but it’s mixed with something else. Is he nervous?

“I need you to trust me.”

“Lia—oh, shit, sorry.” Javier stands in my doorway. “I just need a quick second.”

“No,” Dmitri answers before I can. “Lia is busy for the rest of the day. Sarah can help you, and if she can’t, it will have to wait.”

Javier’s eyes widen, but then he grins and backs out of the doorway.

Dmitri brings the coat to me, sliding one sleeve up my arm.

“I can do it.” I try to brush him away, but he’s steadfast in his mission and he not only gets the jacket on me, but buttons it up too. “Wait. Did you just call me Lia?”

He hands me my phone.

“That’s the name you like, yes?” he questions.

“I—” How can I tell him I’ve come to like him being the only one who calls me by my full name? It’s become something like an endearment.

“Let’s go.” He links our hands together and pulls me from my office.

A part of me thinks I should argue with him and refuse to go. But the rest of me is tired.

Tired of fighting. Not just him, but myself, my father, my brother. I’ve been in a constant battle with ghosts for the last ten days and it’s exhausting.

The late April weather is chilly when we walk along the sidewalk headed to his car only a few hundred feet from the entrance to the center. A breeze blows, seeping through the thin coat I’m wearing.

When he opens the passenger car door for me, his eyes meet mine. I’m not sure I’m ready to see them though.

It’s harder to look at him when he isn’t glaring with his fierceness on display. There’s something softer, almost vulnerable in them today.

“Thanks,” I say as I climb into the car.

After shutting my door he jogs around the front of the car and gets in on his side. The car jostles with his weight.

It only takes a few moments to lose myself in the sights outside my window as he maneuvers us through the traffic of the city. It’s only when we hit the highway that I turn to him for answers.

“I thought we were going home?”

“Not yet.”

I go back to window watching as the city fades and we’re soon driving through more spacious roads. He exits the highway and my heart squeezes in my chest.

The cemetery.

“Dmitri?” I lean forward, looking through the windshield as the sign for Rosewood Gardens comes into view.

With its softly rolling hills, aged statue monuments, and willow trees flanking each side of the road, it’s a somber place.

A spot filled with peace.

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