Page 43 of Sapphire Tears

She sighs. “Don’t you ever want to… to be someone else, Kolya?” she asks unexpectedly. “Go somewhere different? Be far away from all the bullshit? All the politics, the mind games, the violence?”

I shake my head, which is the honest truth. “I never had a choice,” I tell her. “Don Uvarov was all I was ever going to be.”

She scoffs bitterly. “‘Heavy lies the crown’ or whatever, right?”

“Some days,” I concede. “That’s when I drink.”

Her face twists into something inscrutable. Part sympathy, part sadness. “Don’t drink too much. No problem can be solved at the bottom of a bottle. I learned that the hard way.” She fidgets with her hands in front of her waist before she lets them fall and turns toward the door. “I feel a little tired. I’d better go lie down.”

Something in her slow shuffle toward the exit gives me pause, though.

Does she want me to stop her? For a moment, I’m not so sure. Her eyes flicker over me, and then they land on the piano. She slides her fingertips over the gleaming black surface and then pulls back.

“Sometimes, when he played, he seemed like a different person,” she whispers. “Same as you.”

“Is that what you’re hoping for?” I ask. “A different person?”

“I don’t know what I’m hoping for,” she replies softly.

Then she leaves me to the empty room and the old piano. I’ve kept it clean and tuned all these years, because as long as my mother’s pianos were looked after, then a part of her still lived on.

It’s a sentimental thought. Overly sentimental. And the fact that I’m thinking it now means only one thing.

I’m falling too hard for June.

As I walk out of the sitting room, I almost run headlong into Knox. “Sorry, boss,” he says quickly. “Just came to give you an update on the team that’s been tracking your brother.”

“And?”

“They had a lead on him. But at the last minute, he managed to evade capture.”

I nod, unsurprised. “He’s always been slippery. Get another team on the job.”

“Right away, boss. Would you like me to increase security around the grounds, in case he tries anything unexpected?”

“No need,” I tell him. “I have another plan in mind.”

19

KOLYA

“Leaving?” Milana asks, perplexed. “But… why?”

“Because Adrian has a plan. And it most certainly involves June.”

She arches her eyebrows in suspicion. “Tell me this: are you trying to protect her from him? Or are you trying to keep her from him?”

“Both.”

She gives me a knowing smile. “So it’s safe to say you’re worried?”

“I’m not worried,” I snap. “I’m pragmatic. She is vulnerable, and she’s also carrying his baby.”

“And we can’t discount the years they spent together. That’s gonna pull at her heartstrings even if she tries to resist it,” Milana adds, twirling a lock of hair between her fingers. I shoot her a glare, but she just smiles blankly back at me, though she knows damn well that I’m aware she’s trying to push my buttons. “You need to be prepared.”

“For what?”

“For the possibility that she chooses him over you.”

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