Page 58 of Ruined By Sin

My heart soars.

The voice on the other end of this line is my Uncle Victor. He sounds very much alive and unharmed, and tears well up. "Uncle Victor?"

"Yes, honey, I'm here..." He pauses, and it's long enough for a few tears to slip down my cheeks. I sniffle and sit back, still frightened of what Timur may do to me. Just because he lets me talk to my uncle does not mean he forgives me. "Kira, I've made arrangements for you to come home if you'd like... Tonight, even."

Again, my heart lurches in my chest, and now my eyes flick up to look at Timur. His face is contorted in a pained expression, one of remorse and sorrow, but I don't understand what's going on.

"Tonight?"

"Yes, dear, or you can stay."

I scowl in confusion, shaking my head. "Stay?"

Timur's eyes meet mine and I watch him swallow, his Adam's apple bobbing as Victor continues. "Mr. Kuzin has requested a chance to speak with you about this, and after the way heworked things out, I've granted that request, honey." I still don't understand and I want to tell him as much, but Timur comes to sit on the bed beside me. "If you want to come after that, he will let you. We have a truce now, and you won't be harmed."

"But..." My head is spinning, but my heart is starting to anchor itself in Timur's expression.

"Just listen. You'll understand everything." Victor hangs up, and I slowly lower the phone from my ear to my lap.

Timur doesn't speak right away, but after the way he left things earlier, I'm not sure what he wants to say to me. When he walked out, I thought he hated me. He threatened to kill me in no uncertain terms and I tried so hard to cry myself to sleep.

Now I sit here wondering why my uncle would offer me the chance to stay with him. I can only hope it means Timur has seen the light and understands he has nothing to fear from me or my family.

"Morin is dead." His shoulders droop more. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees and buries his face in his hands. "Your uncle pulled the trigger. I couldn't do it—not after everything he did for me. But I made damn sure he couldn't lie anymore before Victor walked in."

The blood all over him says enough. I don’t really need him to describe the details of what happened. I really don't need that mental picture floating around in my nightmares. I already have to fight off the picture of Nika's bloody face half the time.

I let him sit with that confession for a few moments because I'm not sure what to say to him. I know they were friends and it must be very difficult knowing your best friend is dead because he was a lying son of a bitch.

Timur's phone feels like a brick in my lap. For weeks I've been locked up with no way to contact the outside world. It feels strange to have a phone in my hands without feeling afraid someone will shout at me now. I stare at it in lieu of any real words to say, and I never see him straighten or reach for me.

When he does, I startle and try to pull back, but he gently takes the phone from my hand and sets it on the nightstand, nodding at the door. "Your uncle and my brother have struck a truce... So you can go home."

Somehow, his good news doesn't feel like good news, and judging by how he's looking at me, I don't think he thinks it is, either. It feels like breaking up or divorce—or how I imagine divorce feels. Painful and uncomfortable, and very foreign.

"Tim—" I start, but he cuts me off by pressing a finger to my lips.

"Victor asked you to listen to me, so I'm going to say this one time." His eyes flash with anger, then it fizzles out as he starts talking. "You lied to my face, Kira. You knew what you were doing and you purposefully deceived me... Look at my chest, at all this blood all over me. This is what I do to liars."

I swallow hard, but I don’t respond because he can't possibly think Victor or my father will be okay with him doing whatever "that" is to me.

"You look me in the eye and you tell me that the rest is true... That you love me, and that everything that happened between us wasn't some fucking lie you cooked up to stay safe. Tell me, please, because I'm dying inside and I need to hear it."

"Oh, Tim," I moan, leaning into him. My forehead presses to his and he cups my cheek harder, brushing a line over my cheekbone with his thumb. "Every bit of it was real for me. Inever lied about anything else, just my name and my family association, and?—"

"Marry me?"

His words freeze me in place. It's so much, so fast, and I'm overwhelmed. I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster of emotions, scared one second, angry the next, and now I’m being proposed to.

I sit back and look him in the eye, but he doesn't give me a single second to think before he's speaking again.

"I know how insane it sounds, but I knew," he says, shaking his head. His fingers still curl around my neck. "I think I knew the minute you told me you were a Belova that you weren't. And then I still found you so intriguing, and beautiful—fuck. So fucking beautiful. I let you see the real me, Kira, and I'd never felt safer letting someone in. Please, don't make me wait another forty years to find someone. Just say yes. We'll figure it out."

I smile at him, feeling butterflies sizzle and pop in my chest as I drag my lower lip through my teeth and pinch it in place. That was the sweetest proposal I think any man could ever give me, and I don’t need some grand gesture or theatrics. Just the fact that he doesn't want me to leave his home is enough. I don't want to go back to an empty apartment. I want his arms around me.

"On one condition," I tell him, unable to stop grinning.

"Name it."