“Killed herself trying to get the demons out of her eyeballs. Had a closed casket for her funeral. Gouged eyeballs don’t make for a pretty corpse.”
My stomach churns. “Lev, that… I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say. It’s my life.”
“It must have been horrible.”
“There were moments that were horrible,” he admits. “There were moments that were not. I choose to focus on those.”
“You’re a strong man.”
He shrugs. “It’s how I knew I could pass whatever initiation they threw at me. I was built for tougher stuff. The underworld is a place I understand.”
“You never wanted to get away from it all?”
He raises his eyebrows. “If I didn’t find this, I would have ended up in some street gang. I’d probably be dead in a ditch by now. The Bratva gives me purpose. It gives me a reason to get up in the morning. Without it, I would have ended up like my parents. And I wanted to avoid that at all costs.”
“What about love?” I ask. “Is there room in your life for that?” It sounds silly when I say it out loud, but I’m genuinely curious.
“My father loved my mother,” he says quietly. “And it didn’t save either one of them in the end. They lived the last decade of their life apart.”
“Not all love stories end that way,” I remind him.
He smiles. “I take it you’re a hopeless romantic?”
I blush a little. “I’m just an ordinary girl. Most of us are.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. If you were an ordinary girl, Anton would have never fallen for you.”
I know Lev wouldn’t say something like that unless it was true. He’s not the kind of guy to offer insincere flattery.
“Do you really think he’s fallen for me?” I ask in a small voice. My heart clenches. “Did he say something to you?”
Lev smiles. “No. But I’ve known him a long time.”
“He’s not good at saying how he feels.”
“None of us are.”
I sigh. “Sometimes, it’s hard for me. The not-knowing.”
“Jessa, he may not voice certain things out loud. But actions say more than words ever could.”
“He’s protective of me, yes. But I am carrying his baby. I’m just a means to an end.”
“You think it’s just about the child?”
“Well, he hasn’t really known me very long.”
Lev drums on the steering wheel. “Don’t those fairytale books you read talk about love at first sight and fated soulmates and all that bullshit? Who needs time?”
I shoot him a glare. “I’m just saying, it’s hard to know where I stand with him.”
“He won’t abandon you, Jessa.”
“That doesn’t mean he loves me. It means he’s stubborn.”
“He’s as stubborn as any man who’s ever lived,” Lev laughs. Then he falls quiet again for a bit. “I never thought he’d entertain another relationship after Marina. And yet here you are. Pregnant, to boot.”