Page 57 of Luerna

He turned to her with outrage. “Or what? Or what? You want me to threaten you like he does? You want to smack you to make you compliant? There is no ‘or what.’You love me. I love you. I can protect you and all of the kids.” He pulled himself back, slapping a hand against his mouth to keep from yelling. The desperation was making him crazy; he knew it. Levka took a breath. He was scaring her. She stood against the wall, watching him, waiting for him to attack. He hated it. He didn’t deserve it. He had proven time and time again that he wasn’t like Rurik. But her actions only revealed something bigger than any monster. “You don’t want to go, do you?”

“It’s never been about what I want.”

Levka clenched his teeth, slipping his hands in his pockets. His disappointment met her stubborn gaze. Her lack of faith was almost as hurtful as her inability to fight for them. She was giving up before they even tried.

Levka struggled with anger. He wanted to understand her. He wanted to forgive her. But he put so much time and effort into their future and all she had to do was believe in him, and she couldn’t even do that.

I’m too late.It was numbing coming to that conclusion. But it was true. She would never get out, because she was too far gone.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Yep.” Any other words, and he’d break. He had shown her enough weakness that he couldn’t afford to expose any more. Especially when she was already one foot out the door. Every muscle fought him. He wanted to beg her, to plead for her to try, but he couldn’t keep coming to her with his heart in his hand. At some point, she was going to have to give a little. He was sacrificing so much and yet making such little progress. He was tired of fighting it. If she didn’t want him enough to leave her life, then there was nothing he could say.

Luerna could feel the ball of regret, the shame, the sorrow, but she took Irina up and put her on her hip. She clung to her daughter, an anchor, a reminder that no matter what he claimed, Levka couldn’t save them all. She stared at him. There was a shine to his eyes that made her miserable. She was putting his face to memory, even the stress lines and the aggravation on his brow. But he wasn’t a gladiator. He couldn’t fight a beast and come out of it alive. And she didn’t want him to die trying.

As long as he was alive, she could live in her dreams, imagining the one day she could run to him and he’d still be waiting.

As her hand gripped the door, Levka whispered, “The only person that can get you out is you, Luerna. Fight it.”

Her lip trembled, and she nodded before walking out, but there was nothing else to fight. It was over. And it was time to let go.Some people weren’t meant to be happy, and to get their ever afters. Some people die lonely and broken and full of regret. And as the eldest daughter of the Morozov Mafia, it seemed fitting for it to be her.