Page 68 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

“What are your instincts telling you? What is your heart telling you?”

“My instincts?” he repeats in disbelief. I can tell he’s not sure whether to laugh or get angry.

“Yes,” I plead desperately. “Look at me. Look at me and tell me what you see when you look at me.”

He does exactly that. I want to look away, but this is too important to break the moment. I have to stand in the furnace of his gaze and suffer—for him. For myself. For Charity. For my son.

And as I brave the pain of seeing the father of my son stare at me like I’m the one responsible for tearing his world to pieces, I feel it in my chest: hope.

A tiny blossom of hope. Like the first spring flower pushing up through the frozen winter ground.

Say it’s okay,I beg Phoenix silently.Say you forgive whatever I might’ve done. Say you’ll help me fix it.

Oh God, say anything.

Say anything.

Say anything.

“I see a broken liar,” he replies at last.

And just like that, the flower dies.

I turn around and start running in the direction I’d just come from. I don’t hear anything apart from my own heavy breaths and my frantic heartbeat, but I know he’s following me. Hot on my trail, furious and all-powerful.

A second later, he grabs my arm and spins me back around. “You can’t outrun your past.”

I shove him, even though I know it’s useless. “I can try.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not possible. I’ve tried to do the same. It always ends up catching back up to you.”

“So what do I do then?”

“Stay,” he replies. “And face it.”

“I’m not strong enough.”

It’s probably just my imagination, but I feel his eyes soften. His hand lands on my jaw again, but this time, it’s so gentle, so soft, that I barely feel it.

“Most people are stronger than they think,” he says.

Is there hope in that sentence? Is there absolution? Maybe. Just maybe.

But I’m scared to take it. Scared that taking it will mean it’ll inevitably just hurt more when I lose the lifeline he’s throwing me.

I relied on Charity. I can’t allow myself to rely on someone else who might leave me one day.

“I’m not most people. I grew up in… in… in acult,” I say, wrenching the harsh word from my soul. “I believed the lies they fed me and thanked them for it. I only left because I was scared of the way they would look at me. The way you’re looking at me right now…”

“How am I looking at you?”

“Like… like you don’t know what I’m capable of,” I stammer. “Like you don’t know if you can trust me. Like you wish you had never known me.”

“Is that what you see on my face?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re letting your fears rule you.”

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