Page 82 of Beautiful Scar

“You don’t have to tell me,” Dasha says, gently stroking a thumb down the back of my hands.

I push on. I have to get it out. Otherwise, I’ll be trapped in it, the way Dasha’s trapped herself. “We went out for ice cream. It was as normal as it gets. My dad even came for once. Me, Arsen, Dad, and Natalia. I got vanilla, and Nat made fun of me. She said I had the most boring taste in the world. I don’t even remember what she got anymore. It happened when we were walking back to the car.” I take a breath, falling into the moment the way I’ve done so many times over the years. “The tires screamed. The bullets were so fucking loud. I knew what was happening, but there was nothing I could do. Dad tackled Arsen to the ground and yelled for me to move, and all I could do was fall to the concrete. I don’t know how many times they shot, a dozen, more, it’s all a mess in my head, but the car pulled off, leaving tire marks behind, and that’s when I saw her.”

Dasha lets out a soft whimper as she lifts my hands to her lips. “I’m so sorry,” she murmurs, kissing them.

“Five times in the chest. She was bleeding all over. I tried to help, but it was too late. I remember Nat tried to say something in the end, her mouth working as she gasped for air. Bloody bubbles escaped her lips. She looked scared. I tried to help, but she wastoo far gone. She died before the paramedics arrived. She died in my arms, killed by men that were aiming for my father but hit a fifteen-year-old girl instead.”

I don’t tell her one thing. I keep that back, locked up in a corner of my blackened, shriveled heart. The words she whispered, her last words, rasped from bloody lips.I’m scared, Tigran.

We lapse into silence. I’ll never get those words from my head. I’ll never forget the last few pulses of Natalia’s heart. The way the blood stopped flowing. The way she went still.

“I’m so sorry,” Dasha murmurs, hugging me tight. “God, that’s so awful.”

“I think it’s why I’m so obsessed with keeping you safe.” I turn to face her, my beautiful wife, my fierce, incredible kitten. “I should have told you about Natalia sooner, but it’s not easy for me. I don’t talk about her often.”

“I’m just happy you told me now. And I’m sorry I brought it up like this. I feel kind of silly.”

“You thought she was an ex or something?”

“I got a little jealous,” she admits.

I lean in and kiss her. I hold that kiss, letting our lips linger. It’s a possessive kiss, a hungry kiss, and it’s a promise.

“There’s nobody else,” I whisper, our foreheads pressed together. “There never will be again.”

She lets out a light whimper, and I drag her against me again, this time pulling her into my lap. I kiss her, and kiss her, and when we go to bed together and undress, she’s all I have inside, everything left in my dreams. All my old shackles are still there,but they’re rusting and falling apart. She’s going to break them, and I don’t know what I’ll be after that.

But I want to find out.

Chapter 24

Dasha

Ipuke my damn guts up yet again.

“This is starting to be annoying,” I groan to myself, spitting into the water. Once it’s done, I feel a lot better. At least Tigran wasn’t around this time—he got up early to work out in the basement gym.

After I’m done with a shower, I find my handsome and sweaty husband getting changed. I give him a kiss and sniff him. “Musky,” I comment, patting his muscular bicep. “Very ripe.”

“That was weird,” he says, frowning, then dramatically sniffs me. “Lemony. Toothpasty.” He sniffs more, tackling me to the bed. I laugh, squirming as he keeps sniffing and kissing me. “Rosy. Peachy. Delicious.”

“Okay, okay, that was weird, I get it!” He grins at me, his handsome face hanging inches above mine. I touch him lightly with my fingertips. “Let’s have breakfast out back together. And then maybe we can go for a walk around the harbor?”

He pulls back slightly. “Really?”

“It’s a nice day out, right? Seems like a shame to waste it inside.”

He seems totally stunned. I’m trying not to smile, aware of the irony.

“What did you do with my reclusive wife?” he murmurs, kissing my neck.

I wriggle into him. “Careful or else we’re never going to leave this room, let alone enjoy the sunshine.”

“Sometimes I prefer the darkness.”

“You’re just trying to do filthy things to your poor, innocent wife.”

“Goddamn right I am.”

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