Page 62 of Confession
“What false pretenses?”
“A lie! What do you mean what false pretenses?”
“Did you have an ulterior motive for entering my household?”
“Just … to be there.” I’m confused. What is he saying?
“That’s not an ulterior motive, Quinn, and it’s only false pretenses if you had some plan still to kill me, which you obviously had plenty of opportunities to do. Instead you saved my life more times than I can remember. That’s not false pretenses.”
My confusion blows up into frustration. “I’m not good with words like you! I don’t fucking know how to explain!”
“Then let me explain it, and you correct me if I’m wrong. You planned to kill me before you ever knew me. And when you changed your mind and the DiMaggios sent in yourreplacement, you saw it and you stopped him—and that was the first time you saved my life, when you were still a bouncer at Eclipse and that guy came after me in the parking lot. Is that right so far?”
I speak around the tightness in my throat, “Yes.”
“Then I offered you a job in my household and you took it and you spent the next two years protecting me. And whatever you felt, you kept to yourself. Because you didn’t think I would be receptive.”
He studies me there in the dark alley, sees somehow through the darkness, through my silence. He says quietly, “And because you didn’t think you deserved to be loved in return.”
It’s a battering ram on the already crumbling wall that surrounds me. I gasp. I half fall. Vitali presses close, pins me to the wall, holds me up.
“But you’re wrong,” he tells me. “You’re so goddamn fucking wrong because Idolove you and I really always have and I don’t know why it took me so long to understand it and I’msorry. I’m sorry that I was stupidly slow. I’m sorry that I’ve been so fucking impatient with you. I’m sorry that I hurt you and I am so fucking sorry that you got this far ahead of me tonight. And don’t you ever do any shit like this again because you would fucking kill me.”
I gasp, “Vitali—”
“And that’s a lot of words, so let me boil it back down, Quinn.I fucking love you.”
The last of my defenses shatter. I fall into him, shaking so hard I can’t hold myself up. I can’t breathe either. I can’t think and I can’t hear.
The things he’s said hurt because I want them so fucking bad, but they don’t fit anywhere inside me, and I don’t know what to do. Left to my own devices, I think I would just crumple onto the ground and never get up.
But Vitali takes control. He leans down to snatch up all my weapons. He pulls me away from the wall with his other hand, gripping my elbow, drawing me out of the alley and down the sidewalk to where Sasha is waiting by the car.
I look away, only half seeing Vitali handing her my weapons. She hands him the keys.
Vitali says, “Quinn, your keys.”
Numbly, I dig them from my pocket. Sasha takes them from me, fingers squeezing mine as she does it. Then she walks off, heading toward my car a few blocks back.
Vitali walks me over to the passenger side and opens the door. I should be getting him in the car, protecting him, watching for trouble. But I let him do it for me, just this once.
He gets in the driver’s seat and starts the car. He pulls away from the curb. As he starts driving us home, he reaches over, finds my hand in my lap, and threads his fingers together with mine.
TWENTY
Vitali
I cannot believe how fucking close that was. If I hadn’t looked at that fileimmediately. If I hadn’t been so desperate to talk to him again and believe something other than what my brain wanted to tell me about this being another betrayal and me being a fool. If I hadn’t gone looking for him and found him gone and his weapons gone?
Thank god we have trackers on all the cars.
Thank god I asked Sasha to help me. Thank god she had the sense to be silent and let me think and figure shit the fuck out. Because it was all pretty obvious really when I thought about Quinn instead of myself.
But if I hadn’t.
If Ihadn’t…
My fingers tighten on Quinn’s, but he doesn’t look up. He’s somewhere inside himself.
