Page 102 of Filthy Lies

“Or maybe grief strips away the lies we tell ourselves.” I press my palm against his chest, feeling his heartbeat quicken. “Like the lie that we can keep living this way. That Sofiya can grow up surrounded by guards and guns and still be whole.”

“And what’s your solution? Alliance with Grigor? With the man who?—”

“With the man who loved my mother enough to let her go,” I finish for him. “With the man who shares Sofiya’s blood, whether you like it or not. Yes, that’s my solution.”

Vince stands abruptly. “This conversation is pointless. Grigor and I will never see eye to eye, no matter how many love letters you’ve found.”

I clutch the letters to my chest. “He was at the funeral today. He stood at a distance, paying his respects. He didn’t try toapproach. Didn’t try to speak to me. Just honored the woman he loved.”

Something flashes across Vince’s face. Something that might, in another man, be doubt. In him, I’m not sure what to call it.

“You’re reading too much into it,” he dismisses. “It was a power play, nothing more.”

“Was it a power play when you arranged my mother’s funeral? When you picked out her headstone? When you held me while I cried?” I rise to face him. “Or was it love?”

He stares at me, jaw working. “That’s different.”

“Why? Because it’s you? You’re allowed to be complex, but Grigor isn’t?”

“Because I don’t want to fucking kill you!” The words explode from him. “Because my love doesn’t come with a body count!”

I can only shake my head sadly. “How many people have died since we met, Vince? How many lives have been destroyed in my name? In Sofiya’s?”

His face darkens. “I did what was necessary to protect what’s mine.”

“And what if that’s exactly what Grigor is doing, too?” I step closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin. “What if we’re all just doing what we think is necessary, and meanwhile, the cycle of violence never ends?”

Vince’s hands find my shoulders, gripping hard enough to bruise. “What do you want from me, Rowan?”

“I want you to consider that there might be another way,” I reply. “For all of us.”

His laugh is harsh, without humor. “No, there is no other way. This is who we are. This is the life we’ve chosen.”

“Maybe.” I turn away, gathering the letters. “Or maybe it’s just the life we’ve accepted because we’re too afraid to imagine something different.”

38

VINCE

I used to have walls.

Then I knocked them down for Rowan.

Then our baby came, and I rebuilt them—but this time, I built them around all three of us, so that no one could ever hurt us. I thought that would be enough.

I was wrong.

Because it’s only been one day since Rowan found those letters from Grigor to her mother, and already, the walls I’ve built around us have developed hairline fractures.

The poison of possibility seeps through those tiny, skittering cracks—that somehow, Grigor Petrov is more than the monster I know him to be. That there might be “another way” beyond the blood-soaked path I’ve walked my entire life.

Peace. As if men like us ever get to know what that word means.

I’m in my study working when I hear a sound that stops my heart mid-beat. Sofiya’s cry. Not her usual demand for attentionor food, but something terrified that awakens every predatory instinct I possess.

I’m at the nursery door in seconds. “What’s wrong?” I find Rowan bent over Sofiya’s crib, her face tight with worry.

“She’s burning up.” Rowan doesn’t look at me, her focus entirely on our daughter. “I think it’s a fever.”

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