Page 49 of Unveiled

We have to.

I groan as his lips graze my skin. He's just about to kiss my belly when his phone buzzes on the nightstand—a sharp, jarring sound that shatters the moment.

Semyon's entire body grows rigid, his fingers flexing against my thigh as his gaze flicks to the phone.

"It’sRafail."

"Ignore it," I plead, tugging at him again, but I already know he can’t. His expression darkens.

"I have to take it," he says to me. "It's law.Fuck."

I clench my fists at the loss of him and turn away when he answers the phone, angry that my eyes blur with tears.

"Yes," he growls into the phone. The momentary calm shatters as Semyon curses, his eyes swinging back to mine. Whatever Rafail just told him impacts me too.

"What? When? Are you sure?"

I scramble to my feet, alarm prickling me. I’m already heading to the closet to get dressed. "What's wrong?" I ask, my voice shaky.

He turns to me, his face a mask of ice again.

“Eli’s leaving may be more complicated than it looks.”

Chapter 13

SEMYON

I kickeda loose rock at the bank of the creek, watching it tumble into the water with a heavy splash. It was like the endless noise that lived in my head these days after my parents’ death—too loud, impossible to ignore. I thrived on routine, structure, predictability, and the past few months following their deaths had been anything but that.

Rafail had taken over, the guardian of my siblings, and as the second oldest, I helped. Zoya, the baby, was the one who struggled the most. Yana had her own struggles, different from the rest of us, and Rafail—he held it all together. Me? I was the one who struggled.

I came here to think, to get away from Rafail's constant snarking about everyone having to shape up if they wanted to stay safe and with him. He was petrified of one of us screwing up and him losing guardianship over us. Some days, it felt like the tenuous thread holding our family together was about to snap.

We needed space. I needed to regroup. And I knew I didn't have the tools other people had. I often missed social cues, didn’t understand emotion the way others seemed to, and when my world felt like it was crumbling because something changed, people didn’t understand that it felt like the plates of the earth shifted, causing my own personal earthquake.

They never understood. When my world was predictable and ordered, the chatter in my head died down.

Here, by the creek, it was quiet. This was where Anya and Eli were my friends, where I could tell them the truth. Where I could be a kid for once.

But it wasn't anymore. That ended the day my parents died.

I heard soft sniffles behind me.

When I turned, I spotted her right away—a tiny, gangly thing with wild hair and eyes that looked even bigger when she was crying. Anya. Eli’s baby sister and my friend. She was sitting on the ground, and she hadn’t seen me yet, as she hugged her knees to her chest. Eli was supposed to be with her.

“Anya, what are you doing out here?”

My voice was gruffer than I intended. She looked up sharply, sniffled, and muttered something I couldn't hear. I sighed, walking over to crouch in front of her. Emotions were always a challenge for me to figure out, and it was even more complicated when it came to girls.

“Anya, what's wrong?” I asked, trying to soften my tone, though that wasn’t something I was very good at doing.

Finally, she raised her head, her tear-streaked face meeting mine with frustration. “Eli said he’d meet me here. He said he was going to teach me how to skip rocks.”

Even though I couldn't read people very well, I knew she was lying. Somebody had done something or said something—this wasn’t about skipping rocks. “I don't think this is really about skipping rocks, is it?”

She stared at me, and her eyes skated down to my neck, where my first tattoo showed. Something shifted in her expression—recognition, maybe.

“Anyway,” I continued, pushing past the tension. “You don’t need Eli for that.”

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