“Honestly?” he asks. “He was relieved.”
I’m getting colder by the minute. I may never feel truly warm again. “He was relieved his wife was dead?”
He tuts and crosses his arms over his chest. “Well, well, well. Look at you judging all of us.”
“You’re not the one on trial.”
“Aren’t I? Aren’t we all in Jessa’s little mental courtroom?” he says. He taps the side of my head and says in a high-pitched mocking voice, “Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Off with their heads!”
I cringe away from him, annoyed and more than a little creeped out.
“I’m not judging anyone,” I say, hoping I sound convincing. “I just want to survive.”
He laughs bitterly. “Don’t we all?”
“If you’re looking for sympathy, keep looking. You won’t find any here,” I inform him.
“Don’t be fooled, Jessa. Not everyone who lives this life is thriving. Not all that glitters is gold.”
His words feel like they come with extra weight. Things I can’t see, lurking just below the surface. Like staring at a foreign language and knowing that it means something, if only I could figure out what.
“If I return his phone, will he really leave me alone?”
“Maybe.”
I blink. “I’m gonna need a little more reassurance than that.”
“If you’re looking for reassurance, keep looking,” he says, throwing my own words back in my face. “He’s got a taste of you now. He might just let you go once he’s bored of it and needs fresh meat.”
I shiver at his crudeness and take a reflexive step back. “Is that really how men like you think about women?”
“More or less.”
I shake my head. “You can’t fool me, Yulian. You can’t make me forget what I heard when I walked in here.”
“And what was that?” he asks cautiously.
“A man who cares about a woman,” I assert. “A man who has genuine feelings for another person and expects nothing more than her love in return.”
His expression turns sour, but I can only laugh, because I’m right.
“You think that makes you look bad?” I press. “That’s your whole damn problem, Yulian. In my eyes, it only makes you more of a man.”
He watches me carefully, and then he nods, almost to himself. “It would be a shame.”
“What would be?”
“To lose you to the underworld,” he says. “You don’t belong here, Jessa. You deserve a nice, normal life.”
“I agree.”
He nods. “Then give my brother back his phone and you can have it.”
I shake my head. “Anton’s lucky to have you.”
“Tell him that next time.”
“I’m hoping there won’t be a next time.”