Page 30 of Beautifully Damned
I laugh bitterly. “Is that what that was? Different? He shot a naïve boy, Elena.”
Her hands fold in her lap. “Da. But usually, he shoot to kill.”
My heart kicks hard. “That boy,” I whisper, “he’s okay? I just… I needed to ask again. In case Roman—”
“Lied?” she finishes, smiling sadly. “Nyet. He did not. The boy is fine. It grazed. Pakhan was… merciful. The only thing hurt is his pride.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
Elena tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “You do not know what that means, Ayla. That man…” She gestures vaguely toward the house, where Roman is locked away in his office, probably growling at a wall. “He not spare anyone. Even Mikhail—his brother, his blood—had to earn spot. Roman is cold. I not say he a monster. I tell you what life made him.”
We sit in silence again. A bird cries in the trees. I pick at a blade of grass until it splits in half, jagged and trembling between my fingers.
“I think… something is blooming,” she says gently.
I shake my head. “He’s still him. He still threatens, growls, oversteps. He still talks to me like I’m the scum underneath his expensive shoes. He still—“
“Of course he growl. It is all he knows. Is what was taught. Pakhan not raised with kindness. But you… you confuse him.”
“Great,” I mutter. “Exactly what I want to be to a man with a shotgun and authority issues. A confusing puzzle.”
“But he feed you,” she cuts in. “He watch you. You think he care what happen to others in house? No. Only Mikhail. And now, you. I live here long time, but I never see him… hesitate.”
I frown. “Hesitate?”
“Da. He look at you and forget to breathe. He speak to you like he want to scare you, but then watch like he begs you stay.”
“You’re reading too much into things.”
“No. You pretend not to see it. There is difference.”
My mouth opens to argue, but I can’t find the words. Because some stupid, bruised part of me knows she’s right. He did carry me to the bathroom. He did shoot a man and still managed to bethe one panicking when I passed out. He makes sure I’m never hungry. That’s not what you do for collateral, is it?
“I am not saying you fall for him,” Elena continues. “I’m saying… maybe try. Even if he push. Even if he cruel. Maybe just… try to reach him.”
I glance at her from the corner of my eye. “You think I can fix him?”
She shrugs, but her fingers reach over, touching mine. If she knows he’s irredeemable, what does she want from me? Why does she think getting close to someone who has the ability to torch my heart without a second thought is a good idea?
But I hate that I suddenly want to know things—about his past, about the ghosts in his closet. About the boy he was before he became the man everyone fears. About the cracks in his armor. Why he looks at me sometimes like he wants to devour me and other times like he wants me to disappear.
“I don’t think he’s capable of love,” I whisper.
“No one teach him how. But if someone reach him…” She pauses. “Ayla… I believe he love like no one else. If he choose you? He never look at another. He kill for you. Burn for you. Crawl through fire for you. He need to love, and to be loved. It’s time for him. And you…first woman who get close to giving him that.”
I hug my knees to my chest, resting my chin on them. That feels like too much. I don’t even know if I’m staying here another week, let alone long enough to dig into Roman Volkov’s soul and yank the light out of it.
But then again… what if I already started?
What if those little acts—those shared meals, the stolen glances, the soft way he looked at me when I woke up in the hospital—what if those were cracks?
“Just think,” Elena says, standing and brushing grass from her skirt. “You not need to decide today. Or tomorrow. But oneday… you look at him, and you see something you not see before. And when that happen, don’t run.”
I nod, but my throat is tight. She starts walking back toward the house, humming under her breath. I stay behind for a moment longer. Because if she’s right… if I really do have that kind of power over him…
What does that make me?
The key to his ruin?
