Page 159 of Dirty Hit
“Fine,” she mutters. “But when I come back, you’re not dodging me again.” She lifts her chin at me. “Glad you didn’t die, church boy. He’s even more annoying when he cries.”
It’s so aggressively Volkov that a weak laugh sputters out of me before I can stop it. Then my brain short-circuits at the thought of Dominic Volkov crying in front of anyone. But before I can latch onto that, she’s gone, the door shutting behind her with a soft click.
The room feels bigger without her; quieter. The only sounds are the beep of the monitor, the soft whoosh of the AC, and Dom’s breathing—which is not nearly as even as he probably wants it to be.
“How’s the pain?” he asks, eyes raking over my face. His voice is still rough from whatever they were arguing about, but the edges are for me now, not against me. “Scale of one to ten, and don’t fuck with me about it.”
I breathe carefully. My side throbs in this deep, pulsing way, like someone is pressing a hot iron into it and then letting up, over and over. “Seven if I move,” I say. “Four if I stay absolutely still and pretend my body isn’t real.”
His mouth quirks, but the humor doesn’t reach his eyes. “They’ve got you on good stuff. I’ll ask the nurse to top you up in a bit.” He pauses, jaw clenching. “You scared the shit out of me, Little Sin.”
“Sorry,” I whisper, because I honestly didn’t mean to do that in the middle of his mother deciding to go full slasher.
His fingers tighten around mine. “Don’t,” he says. “Don’t you fucking apologize for getting stabbed in my living room.”
That pulls me back to the memory completely. The fog clears enough that memories start slotting into place: the cottage, the darkness, the way my side exploded when the knife went in, Dominic’s voice shouting my name, his mother’s silhouette, that horrible choice she tried to force on him. My stomach lurches.
“She… actually stabbed me,” I say slowly. “I thought I… dreamt some of it. It got weird.”
“It got fucked,” he says bluntly. “She waited at the cottage, tracked you there, decided to make a point.”
“Tracked me?” I rasp. “How—”
He grimaces. “She had trackers on the Charger and the bike. Probably on your shit, too,” he says. “I didn’t think to checkbecause I was busy pretending that ignoring her meant I’d cut the chain. That’s on me.”
Silence stretches, thick and heavy. The monitor fills it with steady beeps, marking out the beats of a heart that’s hammering way too fast for someone who’s supposed to be resting.
“What the fuck were you doing at the cottage?” he asks, and there’s no heat in it, just that quiet, lethal intensity he uses. “You were supposed to be home, taking it easy, maybe yelling at your cat.”
I flush, because there’s no good answer that doesn’t make me sound pathetic. “I was spiraling and I…” I swallow, tasting metal. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to be in my apartment thinking about my parents. Or the video. Or the way everything exploded. Your place felt… safer, and I missed you,” I say, and the words come out smaller than I want them to. “I was scared, and I wanted to be close to you. I didn’t know she’d be there. If I’d known, I never would’ve—”
“Hey,” he cuts in, voice softening. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad that she touched you and got in a dirty hit while my back was turned. Not you, baby. Never you.”
I look at him then,reallylook, and the rawness on his face steals the breath out of my lungs more effectively than any wound.
His eyes are red-rimmed, lids swollen in a way that says my boyfriend—the one I’ve only ever seen laugh or glare or smirk or go blank—has cried. The dark smudges under his eyes look painted on. His hair is a mess, his hoodie rumpled, his hands shaking just enough that I can feel it where they hold mine.
“You killed her,” I say quietly, because it sits there between us, obvious and heavy.
He doesn’t look away. “Yeah,” he says. “I killed her.”
There is no bravado in it, or even pride.
“She was still your mother,” I say, voice barely above a whisper.
He huffs out something that isn’t quite a laugh. “She was my maker; there’s a difference.” His thumb strokes my knuckles. “She wanted me to walk in on you dying to understand what she was taking from me. She wanted to make a point and wanted me to choose, so I chose you. I don’t regret it. You tipped the scales, and she used you against me. That was her mistake.”
The words hit me in layers, then the rest catches up. “You chose me,” I echo, because I heard it in the cottage, but hearing it now, here, while I’m wired to machines, lands differently.
“Yeah,” he says simply. “I chose you, and I’d do it again.”
He doesn’t paint it with pretty words; he doesn’t need to. I see enough in the way his eyes flick away for half a second, the set of his mouth.
“Seth took care of the scene. There was an accident. Her car hit a barrier outside town and caught fire. She’s officially dead. Cremated by gasoline. No open casket. No trail leading back to my floor.”
“That’s a very poetic way to say car explosion,” I say, because if I don’t make some kind of joke, I’m going to start crying—and I don’t know if my stitches can handle that.
One corner of his mouth lifts. “Point is, she’s gone for real this time. No more phone calls, no more surprise visits, no more standing in the stands like a spectre. She can’t hurt you again.”
