Page 10 of Rapunzel Is Losing It

I didn’t mind leaving her alone with Delilah. Beckett was the problem. He may have been putting on the ‘changed man’ act for a few months, but he was still the same calculating son of a bitch who had planned to marry Del-as-Cordelia, and stick Cordelia in a glorified rubber cell in Switzerland for the rest of her life. Leopards didn’t change their spots. I was proof of that. May havepretended to be a house cat for a few years, but I’d fallen right back in with the pack of predators.

“The rest of the chicken pasta is in the fridge, and there’s soup in the freezer.”

“We’re ordering bubble waffles,” Cordelia said.

“Just in case you crave real food.” Between the table-load of sugar in front of her and those dinner plans… How that woman hadn’t died from scurvy before I had started cooking for her was beyond me.

She still didn’t look up from the snacks, only making a shooing motion in my direction. She hadn’t looked me in the eyes all afternoon. Cordelia didn’t know where I was off to, but she was getting better at not overthinking it when I wasn’t here after dark. Clearly, it still bothered her though.

When I’d taken this job, I’d known it wasn’t a regular security position. I’d known I’d move into this house and spend almost every hour of every day here. And with each month that had passed, I’d looked over my shoulder less and less. It had been good. Even when Cordelia had bought the house next door for me to have my own space, I only ever left here after she went to bed, and I was back before she got up.

I may have craved the comfort of disappearing from the world, but Cordelianeededher safe haven.

“I’ll try to make it quick,” I said by way of goodbye, and she just waved me off. For all the ease in her wrist, her shoulders and neck were stiff as stone. She was a shitty liar even if she didn’t say anything.

I didn’t like leaving her alone. I didn’t like leaving her -period. I wasn’t sure when that had started. Being by her side had become part of me over the years. Cordelia had become part of me. At least when I was with her, I could usually make sure that she was safe.

Tonight, however, leaving her was going to keep her safe.

The cold drizzledid nothing to make the orange glow of the restaurant’s windows look more inviting. I would have gladly stayed on the dark sidewalk across the street all night, getting soaked to the bone. Not that I had that option.

I didn’t spare Luka more than a glance when he jogged over from the restaurant with his collar pulled up.

“You’re late,” he bit out.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” I narrowed my eyes at the windows again, but I couldn’t spot Petya from here. He’d chosen the same restaurant where we’d discussed my path forward after my injury six years ago. No doubt, he’d also be sitting at the same table in the back. Just to make a point. I’d nevertrulyleft. I was exactly where I’d been back then.

“You’re going to get us killed on your first day. Is that the plan?”

“I’m here,” I repeated and crossed the street with him, not ready for more conversation than need be.

I hadn’t seen or spoken to my cousin in six years, but he had been the only one who knew I’d hidden with Cordelia. I had trusted him. Last August, it turned out, the rest of my family had been well aware of my whereabouts.My unclehad been well aware. He’d just been biding his time until my position with Cordelia would become useful: Once Cordelia’s father died and she’d inherit a massive fortune. While Cordelia had decided to put her inheritance into charity, diminishing her usefulness, the fact of the matter remained. My uncle had known where I was, and only Luka could have told him.

It wasn’t until we were inside and Luka threw his jacket and scarf over the coat stand, that I got a good look at him. We shared enough features to be mistaken for brothers, light skin, green eyes, sharply angled jaw, brown hair, both trimmed short. But where my tattoos reached up to my chin, his skin was ink-free. He’d collected a few scars though. One through his right brow, and a long jagged one from his ear down his neck. He’d also beefed-up, no longer the spindly 24-year-old he’d been six years ago.

“Come on,” he muttered.

Petya sat with his back to the door. Another point made. He could turn his back to me and know that I wouldn’t put a bullet through his skull. If Luka wouldn’t stop me, the two men standing at the back wall, their guns not even hidden, would.

“Sit down, Vitya. Eat.”

Hearing his dark graveled voice, scratched up from years of smoking cigars, should have irked me. I’d gone six years without that voice in my ear. I should have been upset. I should have had some sort of reaction to it.

The fact that I didn’t just proved that I had never truly left.

I wordlessly sat down at the round table with Luka, and started cutting into the steak already waiting for me. He was literally handing me a knife sharp enough to kill him with, knowing I wouldn’t. We sat there for a few minutes, eating. Fucking family dinner. At some point, a waitress came and sat down a glass of red wine in front of me. I had no doubt that it was old, expensive, and chosen specifically to pair with the meat.

“I’m glad to see you didn’t let yourself go on your little sabbatical,” Petya said when he reached for his own drink.

I just raised my brows in response. A little sabbatical. As if I waseat, pray, lovingit up for six years.

“That will make your comeback a lot easier,” he said with a bright smile while shoving another piece of rare meat in his mouth.

I’d expected as much.

Comeback.

The word still hammered home everything else tonight was supposed to remind me of. I had never left. There was no way out.

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