Page 59 of Claimed By My Ex’s Brother

“Is there a problem?” she asks. “You used to want this more than anything in the world. You told me once you would wait for me forever.”

The question drags me back years, to the early days of taking the organization, the years I lived like a wolf waiting in a dark cave, when the ground was never steady and men wanted me dead every week, whispering darkly about it in back rooms. I checked her safety three times a day back then and called it love. I understand now it was only another way of holding on.

I pull my hand free of hers and straighten. “I cannot,” I say, speaking quieter now. “Not yet, not like this. I’m not ready to give you an answer.”

She freezes, and then her unease flares straight into fury, feverish and bright. “Do you even hear yourself right now?”

“Calm down, Yelena,” a cold, calculated voice answers, and it takes me a second to realize it is mine. “Sit down for a moment.”

She laughs, wet and bitter. “I came back to you. I confessed that I still love you. I’m standing here practically begging you, and you need time.”

Her chest heaves, and my hand lifts on old instinct to check whether her heart is racing too hard. She slaps it away with a force that threatens to leave me black and blue.

“Stop that,” she snaps. “Stop treating me like I’m about to shatter. You wanted to marry me once. You promised you would wait as long as it took.”

She’s right, in the strict sense of the word. I did swear to her once, a lifetime ago, that I would wait, when I was young and certain that wanting a thing badly enough was the same as loving it. “I’m not rejecting you,” I say, my temper a slow tide easing back. “I only need a little time to think.”

“You need more time?” Her voice sharpens to a point. “How could you possibly need more time, after waiting all these years for me?”

Then her gaze slides sideways, to the empty desk against the wall, and I watch the understanding land in her eyes.

“It’s because of her,” she says. “It is because of Delaney.”

My chest drops.

“Are you in love with her?” Yelena asks it flat out. “With your little assistant?”

The name hits me like a fist. Delaney’s brown eyes and her uneven breathing flood my head all at once, sending a thrill to my marrow.

“No,” I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel inside.

But there is a pause before the word, half a second too long, and Yelena catches it. “You are lying to me,” she says, and it comes out half a taunt. “I heard it. You heard it too.”

I did hear it. “I’m not lying,” I say, and I reach for the nearest reason I can find. Any man would be short-tempered, pissed off even, interrogated like this in his own office. That is all this is. That has to be all it is.

“Then say yes,” Yelena says, her feet planting more firmly. “Marry me right now, tonight, in front of everyone.”

The word doesn’t come. It simply will not come, because the only words on my tongue are meant for someone else: you are my obsession.

The last of the hope goes out of her eyes.

“Perfect,” she says, very quietly, and turns for the door.

I shoot to my feet. “Lena,” I call after her, hoarse.

“Don’t,” she says, without stopping or turning around. “Don’t dare call me that anymore, svoloch’.”

I could cross the room and take her arm and stop her. My whole body wants to. Then her old accusation echoes back at me, that my grip on her was a cage, that being kept by me was a slow suffocation, and my feet stay exactly where they are.

I stand there and let Yelena walk out without once looking back. Her spine is proud and straight, hiding every bit of what this cost her, and I watch her disappear down the hall.

None of this is how it was supposed to go. She came home and handed me the ending I spent twenty years waiting for, and it doesn’t feel like winning anything at all.

All I can think about is Delaney, across the city at Sablo House, folding herself back into the life she had before I ever crashed into it.

I bring my fist down on the desk hard enough to rattle the lamp, and the old ruin of my right pinky lights up with a searing pain that almost clears my head.

Yelena’s question ricochets through the empty room. Am I in love with Delaney? I don’t have an answer for it, and not having one is its own answer.