Page 88

That would make sense.

That would fit the man I thought Sasha Sokolov was.

Jealousy. Pride. The refusal to let something he’s claimed be taken from him.

I cling to those explanations because they’re easier. They don’t ask me to believe something far more dangerous that my heart hurts to want. But even as the thoughts circle, trying to anchor themselves in my chest, they unravel under the weight of my own memories.

The last time we were together doesn’t align with any of that.

The way he came undone… the way his voice changed when he said my name. The way he looked at me like I was something that terrified him as much as it drew him in. The way he didn’t justtakebut fought himself over having. Confessing things no one like him ever should.

“Look at what you do to me.”

That wasn’t casual. That’s what scares me the most.

If this isn’t about control… if it isn’t about pride or jealousy or keeping me locked away where only he can reach me… then it means something else entirely that could get us both killed.

“Do you love her?” Lena asks.

My heart stops.

Relief flares—sharp and desperate and fleeting. Of course he doesn’t. How could he? This isn’t love. This is proximity, trauma and power tangled with desire until neither of us can see straight.

“Do you love her?” Lena snaps, no patience left in her voice.

Silence swells on the other side of the door.

It stretches too long. Long enough that I start counting my breaths and the cracks in the marble beneath my body. Long enough that dread seeps into every hollow place inside me, filling them until I’m nearly choking.

Then Sasha murmurs, “Yes.”

The world tilts violently.

The floor blurs in my vision like wet paint. A metallic taste floods my mouth from my teeth biting down on my tongue. I push myself up from the ground, my legs barely listening to me as I stagger back, my palm slapping against the wall to keep me from collapsing entirely.

I force myself to keep moving, to stumble down the hall and back up the stairs to my bedroom.

This can’t be happening.

I can’t let him do this.

I won’t.

I can’t let him burn his life down for me or let him tear his family apart. I’m not worth it. I’ve never been. Not worth bloodshed, or war, or the collapse that will follow of an entire syndicate that has survived for generations before I was ever born.

My chest tightens painfully, each breath shallow and panicked as my thoughts spiral.

He doesn’t love me.

He can’t.

This isn’t love, it’s confusion. Possession mistaken for devotion. Guilt twisted into something else that feels more pure. He’s projecting. He’s drowning and clinging to the one thing that makes him feel human and calling it love because the alternative is admitting he’s unraveling for the first time in his life.

That has to be it.

Because if thisislove—real, reckless, world-ending love—then it will destroy him.

I won’t be the reason that happens.