Page 43 of Conceal

But I don’t do either; I just keep rubbing her arms. Because if we’re honest, she’s had my heart in her hands since we were children. I live for her. And living with her, sleeping with her in my arms, and not confessing how much I already love her, my heart’s broken a little bit every day.

My heart is hers to break.

It always has been.

She looks at Roman, whose expression has fallen dark and serious, but he gives her a subtle nod.

This is all so fucked.

It’s not as simple as her dating whoever she wants. Her family sent me away for Christ’s sake. What the hell would they think if they found out she was dating Lev and Roman! Her father would never approve. Her brother would kill Lev. Her mother’s not going to stop setting up dates for her.

So no matter how much we want to date her, the logistics are fucking impossible.

I can feel it in her body the minute she realizes the same thing I do.

We can’t.

It doesn’t matter what any of us want.

It simply can’t happen.

Roman must realize this, too, because he’s the first to speak up. “We can go somewhere else. Europe maybe. South America. Somewhere they can’t find us. I know a guy who can get us fake IDs and passports. Entire new personas,” he says, but Tatiana stays silent.

“We can’t...” she whispers. Roman flinches as if she’s slapped him. Lev stops his pacing, but drags his hands up his face, over his scalp, and squeezes the back of his neck, tilting his head backwards as he groans.

“All we have is this cabin,” she adds sadly, her voice so small and weak it pains me. Tatiana’s larger than life. She lights up every room she goes into. She doesn’t deserve to feel or sound small and sad.

A heavy silence fills the cabin, each of us coming to terms on our own timeline. Tatiana curls up in my lap, resting her head on my chest, so I run my fingers through her hair, gently working out any tangles she got from our sexcapades.

“Then let’s make the cabin worth it,” Roman says, knowing we may only have another day or so before it’s back to life as normal.

And I listen to the sound of my own heart breaking.

Chapter twenty-eight

Roman

The text mocks me.

Dmitri: Here's a bonus for protecting Tatiana

And a notification from my bank that an additional one-hundred-thousand dollars was added to it.

It makes me sick to my stomach.

Because I may not always agree with Dmitri, but he has always taken care of me and been a man of his word. He didn’t have to give me a bonus. I would step in front of a bullet for her every day for the rest of my life.

Because the alternative - a world without Tatiana in it - isn’t something I care to live through.

If Dmitri knew what I was doing to his daughter, alone in this cabin, he’d kill me, not be sending me money. Guilt is an uncomfortable emotion, and not one that I’m used to. I’m a soldier. I do as I’m told. And I’m good at it. I’ve never had a reason to feel guilty before.

Should I send the money back? Would that give away that I’m falling for her?

I’ve always looked at Tatiana affectionately. She’s a beautiful person inside and out. That affection grew into attraction as she got older. And that attraction grew into an obsession. Until my life revolved around her.

I’d asked to be put on her protection detail because she was going away to college and I couldn’t imagine not seeing her every day, not knowing if she was okay. Fuck, I would miss her. And I can’t exactly text her like a normal man and ask her about her day. That would have been wildly inappropriate for my best friend’s daughter.

Luckily, Dmitri agreed easily. I told him I was ready to slow down and framed it as a semi-retirement. I told him following around a college kid was the pace I was ready for.