Page 3 of Sapphire Tears

And it worked. It worked every goddamn time.

He reaches out and takes my hand, then clasps it between both of his and pulls it to his chest. “I will tell you everything, okay? Just let me get you somewhere safe.”

“No.”

His eyes pull up and interlock with mine. “No?”

I rip my hand out of his. “I want your explanation now.”

He looks around uneasily. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. We’re exposed.”

“I don’t care. I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me why you faked your own death.”

The ring on his finger catches my eye again. It hits me now why it’s bothering me so damn much. Not the obnoxious amount of gold on display, or the violent symbol etched into it. Not even the memory of how it broke my skin when he hit me, the last thing he ever did before he “died.”

No, it’s the fact that it was used to hoodwink me. It was used as a prop to convince me of what I was seeing.

“They called me in to identify the body,” I whisper, mostly just to keep the sobs at bay. I point at his ring. “And I sawthat.Which means you knew they’d do it. You orchestrated the viewing.”

“I needed you to believe I was dead.”

“Why?” I beg, my voice cracking. “For God’s sake,why?”

“It was for your sake, June. I thought that if you believed I was dead, you’d mourn me for a time and then you’d move on. You’d be safe.”

My mouth drops open, even as my anger rises. “Y-you’re trying to tell me that this insane, elaborate farce you created was your stand-in for a break-up?”

Adrian shakes his head fiercely. “I love you, June,” he insists. “I was trying to protect you, and protecting you meant, yes, I had to die. It was the only way to save you from him.”

“From who?!”

“From my brother.”

I stare at him in shock. “You’re insane.”

“No, I’m not. I should have known better; I should have planned better. But the thing is, when I did what I did… I didn’t know you were pregnant.”

I suck in my breath and lean as far away from him as I can.

His eyes are two bright coins in their sockets as he leans forward. “I know the baby is mine, June. If I’d known back then, I would never have gone through with it.”

I recoil as far as I can until I’m pressed up against the car door. The setting sun is washing out his face in a way that strikes me as unsettling, alien. Like he really did die and come back. He’s not human anymore, and neither are the things he’s saying.

“I know you’ve been with Kolya. I’m sure he’s filled your head with all manner of lies, but I’m here to tell you: you can’t trust him, June.”

“Says the dead man.”

He takes a deep breath. “My brother is a master manipulator. When we were younger, he was my own personal tormentor. That didn’t change as we got older. Maybe that’s why I realized early on that I didn’t want that life, June. I wanted to be free of it. So I broke away from the Uvarovs, and I left the Bratva behind. That should have been that. Except… Kolya saw it as a betrayal.”

I shiver again. Stories swim around in my head. Everyone wants to be the hero; no one wants to be the villain. But who do I believe?

Ravil? Kolya? Adrian? Myself?

Everybody?

Nobody?

“He expected me to play second fiddle after the schism. And the more Ravil gained power, the more determined Kolya became to try to drag me back to the life I gave up.”

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