Fallen Royal (Mafia Royals 4)

“You’re coming with me,” he finally said. “I just need to talk to the men real quick and make sure the fire chief looks into how and why this happened.”

Maksim was a take-charge sort of guy only when absolutely necessary, so I was suddenly seeing him in a different light as he went to the men and barked orders, then ran over to the fire chief who’d just arrived and told him what was going on.

I walked over to his car on numb legs, pulled open the door and sat, slamming it shut behind me. I waited there and watched.

And as I watched, I wondered what the missing puzzle piece was because something was off; something wasn’t quite right.

He’d run from me after rescuing me, like touching me made him angry, like holding me was too much.

At least we could agree on that.

Touching him was too much.

I’d do better in the future and try not to get myself killed because a sick part of me thought it would have been better to be burned by the fire than by his touch. One left a scar on the outside.

The other left an unhealable wound on the inside.

Both were bad.

But at least one would fade.

The scars left by Maksim Sinacore—were eternal.

Here to stay.

Even when he was long gone.

Chapter Five

“You must suffer me to go my own dark way.” —Robert Louis Stevenson

Maksim

It was close.

Too close.

She shakes next to me. I notice the way she leans away like she’s afraid to touch me, to be too close when all I want is to pull her into my arms and kiss her fear away. I’m not stupid; my kisses aren’t welcome, nor will they make it go away. They’d just push her further than she has already been pushed.

She’s not wrong.

Maybe that’s what sucks the most.

When you love someone, really love someone, you both have this uncanny ability to manipulate each other’s emotions, even when it’s not intentional. You can’t help but react.

Good or bad.

Helpful or hurtful.

Everything cuts deeper.

The hits hit harder.

Conversations are more intense and chaotic.

Arguments go from zero to sixty in under two minutes.

But it’s because you feel so much.

And when you feel all those things, it’s hard to control yourself, it’s hard to calm yourself down, to even your breathing, to listen or rationalize, because what the fuck happens if one day… they walk away?

Emptiness, that’s what happens; that’s your answer. Swimming in a black hole of depression, floundering, reaching for them, hoping to God that they’ll come back, that your own insecurity didn’t push them away, that their own stubbornness didn’t force them to leave.

I clench the steering wheel, angry with myself and angry with her that we were brought to this place where our love somehow manages to create hate.

I did that.

And I would do it again to protect her—to protect her from what I’ve become, or was forced to become.

To keep her safe.

A tear slides down her cheek.

Does she know how desperately I want to reach across and catch it with my fingertip just so she doesn’t feel the weight of it on her jaw or feel the slow drip down onto her bare thigh?

But I know that touching her again, I will react.

She always makes me react.

Because I love her.

Because I hate her too.

Because she drives me insane.

Yet makes me calm.

She’s my storm.

And everything toxic and beautiful about a relationship that shouldn’t be but is. And I know I will lose control.

I won’t stop.

I will snap.

And she’ll blame herself.

So, I keep my hands on the steering wheel.

Shaking, gripping, burning, while my body accepts the medicine that Nikolai says is no longer working as if I’m going to turn into the Hulk or something.

Negative.

Sometimes I think what’s happening to me is worse. Like being trapped inside a body that no longer belongs to the real you but something you’ve created in order to protect yourself.

A sickness.

With no cure.

A shrink would love to dissect my body, I expect.

“It’s going to be okay.” I’m finally able to talk; my voice is calm again, even though it might take Junior, Ash, and King a hell of a time to get my grip off the steering wheel.

We pull into my giant brick home a few miles down the street, secluded in its own spot, overlooking the city like the royals we are.

It’s Chicago, so because my mom wanted an open concept, my dad relented and built her this sick outdoor area that they can enclose if it starts snowing. Basically, our outdoors are our indoors. All of us love being outside, so we even have a few flat-screens and plunge pools around the outside of the house with a small button we can push that lets us cover the entire outdoor living area, while still allowing us to look at the stars.

Ours was the house that everyone was terrified to play at when we were little because things were so fancy and high-tech, something my dad said he would always do for my mom after the numbers.