Endless (Merciless 4)

It doesn’t matter though. He’s not here, and I doubt he’ll come for me until he has the time. Business has always come first.

“What did he do to you, Ria?” Nik asks me and I turn to him. Seated in the whiskey-colored leather wingback chair in the corner of the room, I see Nikolai in a different light than I ever have before.

Not as my friend or former lover, not as the boy who needed me. But as a man in pain and on edge, reckless and wanting change, needing it and ready to take it.

I see him as a danger.

“Nikolai, you’re scaring me,” I whisper with a quietness that begs for them to stay silent, but somehow the words find him. The corner of his lips drag down as his eyes flick with a light of recognition.

“I don’t mean to, I just don’t think you realize what has to happen,” he tells me and then swallows with a look of anguish in his features.

“What has to happen?” I ask him, feeling my hands go cold as I stand aimlessly in the room. Knowing I’m once again at the mercy of men who find me lacking.

“Today men will die.”

“Men die every day,” I’m quick to respond and he gives me a sad smirk with his huff, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He stares at the floor and not at me. His eyes close as I whip around to the door of the office, hearing shouts echo down the halls. The feeds are down. Nik’s cell phone goes off, but only for a second before he silences it and his gaze moves from it to me.

“It’s all right. You had to know he’d come for you,” he tells me, his eyes begging me to deny it, but he already knows the truth.

The pounding in my chest intensifies, and a warmth spreads through me but not nearly enough to stop frigidness that clings to me.

“Will you hate me if I made it easier?” Nik asks me, shifting his weight and reaching behind him for the gun tucked in the back of his pants. “If I killed him, would you hate me?” he asks me but shakes his head before I can even answer. My lips are parted and the words are there, yes, I’ll hate you forever if you kill him. The pleas not to are the same I’ve heard before, spoken from my own mouth.

“You know that I love you,” he tells me and then he adds, “And you know he’s no good for you.” I watch the muscles in his neck tense as he swallows. He stands and pulls a drawer open in my father’s desk, taking another gun, checking that it’s loaded and placing it on the desk before closing the door.

“You ran from him… But still, you want him to live.”

“I can’t explain it,” I tell Nikolai, watching every small movement.

He peeks up at me, hearing the trace of fear in my words and lowers his head. “I’d never hurt you, Ria. Stop looking at me like I would.”

“There are different kinds of pain. And I’ve recently come to accept that some people, some men very close to me, can’t help but to cause me the worst kinds of pain.”

“Don’t compare me to him,” he retorts, and the menace in his voice is as chilling as the sharpness in his eyes when he looks at me.

The sarcastic and flat response comes from a place of pain deep inside of me. “How dare I do such a thing.”

“You’re just sick.” Nikolai speaks more to himself than to me. “You’ll see. When this is all over, you’ll see.”

“I’ve thought long and hard about that. About whether or not I was sick,” I tell him as he rounds the desk and leans against the front of it. “I think maybe for a moment I was. Maybe when I wasn’t well, and I know I wasn’t well because of him. But I can see clearly now. And I’m thinking more about myself these days.” My fingers itch to touch my lower belly, but I don’t. I don’t want him to know or anyone else. I’ll bide my time and then I’ll run far, far away. I’ll be someone else. And leave all traces of Aria Talvery and this world behind.

“Don’t you think if you were sick, you wouldn’t know it?”

I nod once, feeling a strength rise inside of me. “You’re not wrong, but the thing is, even if I am sick, I like who I am more now than I did before. I see the world for what it is, and I’m stronger for it.” I don’t tell Nikolai, but deep inside I know I can be whoever I choose. I can do whatever I choose to do.

At this moment, running is what I choose, because I want this child to live a life surrounded by love. And I don’t know if it’s possible to have that with Carter. No matter how much I love him or how much he thinks he loves me. He doesn’t know how to love. And I won’t allow that life for my child.