Page 22 of Toxic Salvation
“Have you been miserable without me?”
I look up, a lie ready on my lips. But I’m so fucking sick of lying. “Every day,” I admit. “Every damn day.”
She closes her eyes, and a single tear slides down her cheek. “That doesn’t make any of this easier.”
“I know.”
“I’m tired, Kovan. I’m so tired I can barely think straight.”
“Is it the baby?”
“It’s everything,” she whispers. “The baby, my mother, work, you, my father…” She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “I feel like I’m drowning.”
“Does your mother know? About the baby?”
“No one knows except Waylen.”
“Great. He probably wants to kill me even more now.”
“He’s my brother. He’s supposed to be on my side. He thinks you’re…” She takes a long time to think about how that sentence should end. “Well, it doesn’t matter what he thinks. I know what you are. You’re not a bad man.”
I can only scoff. “Aren’t I?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “You’re not. I just… Look, I know things aren’t always black and white. I understand better now the lengths a person will go to protect the people they love. When family is involved, you can’t always think clearly. I’m just saying… it’s not always black and white, okay? That’s all. I know that’s not that smart or poetic, but it’s true.”
We’re both quiet for a while, breathing in sync.
“Yeah,” I say at last. “It gets complicated.” I rub the back of my neck one more time, then slip out the door, torn in two directions by all the things I should say and all the things I want to say instead.
I’m halfway down the hall when I hear her voice one more time, so quiet I almost miss it.
“Goodnight, Kovan.”
I stop walking. I touch the wall like it can communicate all the things I’m thinking, like it can find the words I cannot say out loud and give them to Vesper on my behalf. “Goodnight,” I whisper to her, though I know she can’t hear me. “Sweet dreams.”
9
KOVAN
“It smells like lavender downstairs,” Osip announces the moment he and Pavel walk into my office.
Pavel stops short in the doorway, squinting through the darkness toward the lounge where I’m sprawled in the wingback chair, staring at absolutely nothing.
“That’s Osip’s tactful way of asking if Vesper’s here,” Pavel explains as he flips on a light. “My question is—why does it feel like a vampire’s crypt in here?”
“I wanted darkness and quiet. Both of which are now fucked, thanks to you two.”
“Definitely crabby,” Osip declares, settling onto the sofa without invitation. “Vesper must be here. No one else can put him in this kind of mood.”
“If you’re gonna stay here, sit down and shut up,” I growl. “I need to think.”
Pavel claims the opposite end of the sofa while Osip spots the bottle of vodka I cracked open an hour ago. He pours himself a generous glass and offers one to Pavel, who waves him off.
“We celebrating something?” Osip asks, entirely too cheerful for my current state of mind.
“What’s going on, Kovan?” Pavel uses that careful tone he reserves for when he thinks I might snap.
I shift in the chair, pulling my legs down from where they’d been draped over the arm. The vodka I poured earlier out of habit sits untouched in my glass. Strange how the urge to drink disappeared the moment I knew Vesper was under the same roof.
