The Enforcer (Chicago Bratva #3) - Renee Rose Page 0,62

I haven’t seen anyone that torn apart as when she thought you’d gone to your death.”

“Maybe Maxim when he thought Sasha was dead,” Dima counters, “But yeah. She was a hot mess.”

A hot mess.

“So, to me, it seems more like it was about you leaving. She absorbed all the rest of the crazy shit that went down without much of a complaint,” Nikolai says.

Me leaving. That strikes a chord somewhere.

Story had told me she couldn’t rely on the people in her life. That she’d had a lot of love from her family but no stability.

That must be why she said she always left relationships. Maybe she’s the type who leaves before she gets close. Before she can be abandoned or let down again.

She’d liked that I was steady. I showed up week after week. She could count on me.

And so by leaving, I did the one thing she was afraid of. I proved myself unreliable. As capable of wounding her as the other people closest to her.

I betrayed Story. Abandoned her.

Fuck.

I didn’t just poke her wound, I stabbed her in it. After she’d told me how scary it was to rely on someone.

Gospodi.

I thought I’d turned myself into Skal’pel’ for her and left her money for a new start, but was it any kind of gift worth receiving? A bag of cash and another abandonment?

It was no gift at all. Story’s the type who’d rather risk her own life and stay by my side. She’d already proven that to me. And I made her sacrifice mean nothing.

“What?” Nikolai demands.

I type, I abandoned her when she needed me to be her rock.

“Fuuuuuuck,” Dima says after he reads it.

“So you have to show her that you’re still her rock,” Nikolai advises.

I hold my hands out to ask how?

“Tell her. Keep going to her show. I wouldn’t get in her face too much—you don’t want to disrespect her wishes—but prove you’re not going anywhere. Not ever again. And communicate. I seriously feel like shit that we didn’t get to know you until Story moves in. I don’t know why we didn’t try harder to draw you out of your shell. I mean, fuck. We could’ve learned sign language a long time ago.”

“Definitely,” Dima concurs. “Hell, maybe we could even get you a speech therapist. I’ve been doing some research, and it sounds like they could teach you new ways to talk.”

I want to weep with gratitude at the flicker of hope the twins sparked—not about talking but about winning back Story. I stand, and when the twins also stand, I pull them in for a handshake and man-hug, thumping them each on the back.

“Oh. Okay. Wow. You must feel better,” Dima says, chuckling. “How can I help?”

I shake my head. I already know what I’m going to do. And it’s going to work. It may be a long game, but I’m willing to play it.

I’ll play it until the day I die if I have to.

I’m Story’s rock, and she’s going to know it and believe it and feel it right down into her bones.

I love her, and I will never abandon her again.

Chapter 16

Story

“Story? Hey, it’s Mom.”

The warning bells all go off at once at the sound of my mom’s voice. It radiates with the heaviness of depression.

“Mom, are you okay?”

“Uh… I’ve been better. Sam and I broke up.”

Tears spear my eyes, not for my mom but my own self-pity kicking into gear. Like, seriously? Do I have to deal with my mom’s breakup right now when I haven’t even managed my own yet?

“Can you come over? I don’t want to be alone.”

Blinking back tears, I shove my feet into my boots and pick up my keys. “Okay, Mom. I’ll come right now. Are you at home?”

“Um… yeah. I’m at home.” She sounds lost.

I have to breathe through the spike of fear that accompanies all of my mom’s episodes. The fact that she reached out is good. Getting her help early prevents the really damaging lows. “I’m heading over now.”

“Thanks, hon,” my mom says, sounding like she’s lost in a dream. I know the feeling.

I get in my car and head over to her place, numbness taking over the anxiety.

I’ve been anxious ever since Oleg left my place Saturday night. In fact, every day that’s passed, it’s grown stronger and stronger.

It doesn’t make sense. Usually when I get that anxious feeling, I cut ties with whomever I’m getting too close to, and it immediately drops away. I consider it my gut instinct