Page 112 of Diamond Devil

“Why?” she asks. “You didn’t molest me.”

“Ilarion didn’t know?”

“He didn’t know until I told him, and that wasn’t until years after it started happening. Of course, he tried to save me. He was always trying to save me back then. Still is.”

“Save you from what?”

“Myself, mostly. I was this close to saying, ‘Fuck it all,’ and jumping off the top of the house,” she says with a bitter laugh. “Those were bad days. But now…I’m fine. Mostly fine. The only bad days left are the ones where I remember how long it’s been since I let anyone else that close. You start to wonder if it’ll ever happen. But who needs it, right?”

My eyes go wide. “You mean…you’ve never…?”

“No,” she says with a firm shake of her head. “I haven’t been able to. The idea of another man, any man, touching me like that…It makes me feel…” She shudders and I lean in instinctively to put my hand on her leg.

She flinches, but she doesn’t move away.

“I hear you,” I murmur. “It’s okay.”

Mila sighs and fiddles with her bracelet. “I don’t talk about this with many people. In fact, I don’t talk about this with anyone at all.”

“I’m honored.”

“Don’t be,” she says. “It’s just a testament to how broken you are that I’m bringing up my own shit.”

I smirk. Classic Zakharov—lash out to keep the attention off of yourself. “Still, I appreciate it.”

She sighs and relaxes. I watch how the tension in her shoulders eases just enough to let me see past the armor she’s built over the years to protect herself. Like a wild beast finally rolling over to show you the thorn in its paw.

“Maybe you just haven’t met the right man yet,” I suggest. “Maybe that’s why the thought of being with—”

“No,” she interrupts.

“No?”

“I’ve met the right man; I just can’t bring my walls down long enough to let him in. And since I can’t give myself to him fully, it would be selfish to get involved with him in the first place.”

I loft a brow. “Maybe you should lethimmake that decision.”

She shakes her head. “I’d much rather be alone. It’s simpler that way. I have only myself to worry about. That kind of independence is…freeing.”

“It does sound that way, doesn’t it?” I muse. “But it seems to me that loving freely is more important than living independently.”

Mila glances at me. Her eyes are murky with half-formed things. There’s doubt there, and a certain hungry restlessness that she’s not able to feed.

Surviving is one thing.

Living, though? That is another thing altogether.

She focuses on me and smiles conspiratorially. “Look at you, being all optimistic in the face of grief. Maybe you’re not so broken after all.”

I shake my head and scowl at her. “You’re just as much of an ass as your brother, you know that?”

She laughs and the sound breathes new life into me. “Why, thank you. It’s one of our best qualities.”

53

ILARION

“What do you smell?” I ask.

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