Page 38 of With This Kiss
“No,” I answered honestly. I knew my place was here in New York. While I still had my doubts about my position once Kingston takes over, I had already committed my life to the Bratva.
I was born in this life, and I will die in this life.
There would be no other alternative for me.
“Do you want to leave?”
“Sometimes I fantasize about it. About going somewhere no one knows anything about me. I like the idea of that freedom.”
“Freedom’s an illusion.”
“Says the six-foot-three man. How nice it must be for you to just walk around feeling safe.”
“I’m actually six foot five of pure muscles and steel, and all yours if you want it.”
She scoffed.
I grinned. She was fun to fuck with.
“There are still restrictions in my life,” I said seriously. “Freedom is nothing more than an illusion we tell ourselves to feel better about our surroundings. We’re always weighed down by everyone’s expectations of us. And any commitments we make toward other people.”
And it was laughable that she thought I felt safe and invincible walking out on the street. Sure, not many bastards would come at me just based on my size alone, but the Mahankov name carried its own weight. I was certain there was a bounty on my head.
“Aren’t you tired?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t really think about it. But you sound tired.” I leaned in closer to her. She surprised me when she didn’t move away. “How about this? If you ever feel tired, just come to me and rest a little. I’ll keep all the monsters away for a bit so you can rest. Yeah?”
I could hear her breath catching. She didn’t answer me, but I knew she heard every word because her eyes were focused intently on me.
“You’ll really keep all the monsters away?”
I nodded. “I’ll keep all the monsters away.”
Much like ourdrive away from the city, our drive back home was made in silence.
But something had shifted between us—something had shifted with her, and I didn’t know what or why that was.
She only spoke enough to give me her address, and I typed it into the GPS, pretending I didn’t already know it.
The drive back to her place felt shorter somehow, and there was a part of me that didn’t want to let her get out of the car.
So I parked and turned off the engine. She looked over at me questioningly.
“I’ll walk you up,” I said.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know. But what sort of gentleman would I be if I didn’t walk you up?”
“You’re not a gentleman,” she said matter-of-factly.
I chuckled. “You seem to have a pretty poor opinion of me.”
I was met with silence. If I was expecting her to refute that, I would have been disappointed. I let out another laugh and pushed the door open. She was already out of the car when I made my way over to her side.
We walked up to her apartment in silence. She lived in the better part of New York City. Not exactly filled with the most affluent people of New York, but it wasn’t bad either. And I knew that the rent here could get pretty high.
Her apartment building was old but well-maintained. And it looked like there had been some renovation work done on it recently. A little digging, and I knew Caine gifted her this apartment building on her twenty-first birthday.
