Page 97 of Obsessed Bratva Daddy
"Am I bad for killing them?" I said.
She did not flinch. Her eyes stayed on mine. She thought about it.
"You did it tonight?" she said.
"It is done." I took a breath. "I thought it would feel right. It does not. Like I am not me."
She did not say what I had been afraid she would say. She did not tell me it was okay. She did not tell me they deserved it. She did not call me a monster, either.
She set her tea down. Her eyes stayed on the camera.
"You're still you," she said. Soft. "The you who's loud about feeling bad about it right now is the proof of that. The man you'dbe afraid of being wouldn't call me at this hour asking if he was bad. He'd be drinking alone and asking nobody anything."
I closed my eyes for a second. The dark inside my eyelids was the only dark I trusted.
"I'm not going to tell you what you did was nothing," she said quieter. "I'm not going to call it beautiful. But you didn't do it because you liked it. You did it because you loved people. Including me. I see the difference. I'll keep seeing the difference. You're allowed to feel hollow tonight."
I opened my eyes. She was still there. Same kitchen. Same light. Same tea.
"I miss you, Chloe," I said.
"I'll be home soon."
"Come home tomorrow."
"Two more days," she said. Gentle. Firm. "My grandma. Then I'm yours."
I nodded. I let it sit. She let it sit with me.
"Eat something tonight," she said after a moment. "Sleep next to a window so the air can find you. Don't drink alone."
"Yes, ma'am," I said. The corner of my mouth almost did a thing.
She did not say goodbye. She just stayed on the screen. She sipped her tea. She watched me breathe. I breathed for her. The trees rolled past the window of the car, dark on dark, and the cold air slipping in the cracked window smelled of frost.
I had spent the night being a man other men were right to fear. I was about to spend the rest of the night being a man one woman was loving from a kitchen in Queens. Both of those were me. I could carry both.
26
CHLOE
The chicken porridge had been simmering for over an hour, and grandma's apartment smelled like garlic and ginger and the kind of broth that fixes things you can't name. I had the heat low, the lid tipped, my sleeves shoved up to my elbows.
In the front room, the TV murmured. Some drama I'd half memorized, a woman in a tailored coat telling a man in a tailored coat that he didn't understand her at all. Grandma nodded along on the couch, late afternoon light coming through the windowsill, gilding the spider plant she'd kept alive since before I was born.
I was reaching for the salt when the knock came.
Three knocks. Not loud. Polite, but firm. The kind that knows you're home.
I wiped both palms on the dish towel and called out, "Coming!" My sock feet were quiet on the linoleum. Grandma didn't look away from her screen, but I felt her attention tilt anyway. She always knew before I did.
I pulled open the door.
Daniil. And Rhea.
She had Beom-Beom tucked under one arm, the damaged ear pressed against her ribs, her braids gone fuzzy from the car ride. Her eyes were huge. Behind her, Daniil filled the landing in a charcoal coat with the cold still riding his shoulders, hair wind-flattened on one side, gray-green eyes already on me. The scar at his temple caught the hallway light.
My heart did a small, ridiculous thing I wasn't in the mood to explain.
