Page 138 of Bratva's Vow
“It matters,” he said, voice breaking again. “Because I need to know if I’m the reason he’s dead.”
“No,” I said firmly. “You are not. Don’t you ever?—”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? You didn’t take Vova’s calls because you were searching for me.”
I couldn’t lie. Not now.
“Yes,” I said softly. “I didn’t answer him. If it’s anyone’s fault… it’s mine. Not yours.”
He stared at me, devastation etched across his face.
“Maxim,” he whispered. “How could you not realize that’s something I deserve to know? Something I’d want to know?”
I closed my eyes, jaw tight. “Because I don’t know what truth you can handle. I still don’t know how much of the real me you can take.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You say you want the truth, but do you, Wren? Do you really?”
He flinched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the unanswered questions between us about your father.” I curled my hands into fists in my lap. “How come you’ve never really asked me about him?”
His mouth opened, then closed.
“You never asked how he died. Or where he’s buried. You think I haven’t noticed?” I didn’t mean to be cruel, but after the funeral, I was just so fucking tired. “If you can’t ask me that, how the hell am I supposed to know what else you can handle?”
Silence dropped between us like a thunderclap. Even Jellybean, curled up beside Wren, fell still.
Several seconds passed. Then Wren let out a shuddering breath. “I was scared.”
I looked at him.
“I didn’t ask because I was afraid to know the answer,” he said. “Afraid that finding out too much would make me… conflicted. Would make me hate you. Or hate myself for still loving you.”
He turned away then, wiping his face with the heel of his hand.
I exhaled, long and slow, finally letting go of something that had been strangling me since admitting how much I loved this boy.
“Come with me.” I stood and held out my hand.
Wren looked at me through red-rimmed eyes, his arms wrapped protectively around Jellybean. But he took my hand like he couldn’t bear the space between us any longer. I took the dog into one arm and led Wren inside the house and down the hall to my office.
The room felt colder than usual, the secret I kept in here like another body in a drawer of a morgue, cold, still, waiting to be named.
Wren frowned. “Why are we here?”
I didn’t answer.
I put Jellybean down, and he followed closely at my heels. At the bookshelf to the far right, I pressed the hidden latch. The quiet mechanical hum of the shelves shifting open filled the space. Wren tensed as a steel-lined safe was revealed behind the false wall. I entered the code—numbers etched into me, like scars.
When the door swung open, I reached inside and pulled out the urn. The only one that remained.
It was smooth. Light. The weight of a life, reduced to ashes.
I turned and held it out to him.
Wren didn’t take it. He stared at it, blinking like he couldn’t quite make sense of what he was seeing.
