“She’ll know what it means. I’ll tell her. And if she wants me, then it’ll be because she’s prepared to stick by me through thick and thin—”
“You’ll tell her about Franco?”
Again, silence.
“That’s what I thought.” Niall shakes his head. “You’re like a brother to me, Liam, for all that I work for you as well. And I’ll stick by ya to the end, no matter what. To death, if that’s what it takes, back to back, side by side. I’ll fight anyone who threatens your right to that seat. But I need you to think this through. Think about what it means.”
“And if I still say I want her, and nothing will change my mind?”
“Then I’ll do anything that needs to be done to see that you have that and still keep your place.” Niall shrugs. “It’s the promise I gave ya, and I mean to keep it. But all I ask is that you know for certain that there’s no other path for you. No way that you can put her on a plane to Manhattan and all this mess behind us.”
I can feel my teeth clench; it feels like the weight on my shoulders is growing heavier by the moment. I know, down to the depths of my soul, what the easiest road forward would be. But I can’t do it.
If I let Ana go, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
Not so long as there’s a chance that she might still want me.
8
ANA
Isink down into the bath with a sigh, closing my eyes. The hot water feels good, closing in over my skin and soothing my aching muscles. I don’t want to think about what’s ahead of me, and here it almost feels as if I don’t have to, as if the world can stop for a moment and I can just exist. I try not to think about the Paris apartment, about the baths there, the things I did. I try not to think about Alexandre’s earnest face, his hands on my body. I try not to pretend that my hands are his, as they rove over my skin, but it’s hard not to.
I was only there with him for a little while, but it left a mark on me that I can’t shake so easily. After so much time in the darkness, Alexandre felt like a light, like something to cling to. Something to hope for. Something good.
But now, Liam is offering me something else—something that I didn’t have with Alexandre, no matter how happy some of my time with him made me.Choice.
I just have to decide if I want it.
I close my eyes, sinking further down into the water, until I’m nearly submerged with my hair floating around me and just my nose and lips above the steaming surface. The thought occurs to me that I could sink further, that I could open my mouth and suck in all that hot water into my lungs, stay down and let it replace the oxygen there, and give me a new kind of peace. A different kind. Apermanentkind.
It’s hardly the first time I’ve had those thoughts. They haunted my every waking moment in my lonely apartment, the one I’d rented after Sofia moved in with Luca. On my own, with nothing to fill my days that had once been crammed full of classes and rehearsals and friends and activity, my feet aching and burning with pain that seemed to make all the other bruises and injuries on my broken body seem insubstantial, I’d thought of every avenue in that small apartment that could let me end it.
I’d spent a lot of time in the bath, trying to soak away the pain, and I’d thought of a lot of them there. It had become almost an obsession at times, cataloging all the ways I could put an end to it. A comfort, knowing the option was there.
Even if, deep down, I knew I’d never take it. I was too afraid, even more afraid of that than the seemingly endless pain and sadness.
Now, a lot of the pain has receded. I don’t know if I’ll ever walk the same way again or if I’ll ever be able to go a whole day without pain, but Icanwalk. I just can’t run, or dance, or ever really forget about the reasons why, because I’m reminded of them with every bit of pain that I do feel. Every time I remember something Iusedto be able to do, every time I want to do something and then remember that I can’t.
Liam wants me to believe that I can heal here, andIwant to believe it, too. He wants me to believe that I can choose to move forward, leave the past behind and start over.
But I don’t know if I can. And the small voice whispers in the back of my head as I float in the tub,breathe in. Let it stop. Let it all stop.
The pain, the fear, the memories, the crippling need tochoose, to make decisions for myself without knowing what the outcome will be in the end. It used to be easy for me to do. I made decisions all day for myself, lived my life the way I wanted to, and I’d never thought twice about it. From the simplest of decisions like what eggs to buy all the way up to the decision to try to seduce information out of Viktor’s soldiers to help Sofia, I’d thrown myself headlong into any choice I made, trusting it was the right one.
And where, in the end, had it gotten me?
I take a deep breath and sink beneath the water.
---
An hour later, I’m sitting on the bed wrapped in a robe I’d found in the closet, a thick hotel-style one that Liam must have left for me. I press my hand against my chest, feeling the damp, warm skin underneath my palm, and take a deep shuddering breath.
I’d come very close. I’d opened my eyes under the water and looked up at the wavering ceiling above me, and I’d thought about it. I’d held my breath for as long as I could. When my lungs had finally been screaming, I’d made the first choice of my own since I’d been bundled off to the safe house in Russia in the wake of Alexei’s betrayal.
I’d come up for air.
I can faintly hear voices coming from the living room—Liam’s and someone that I don’t know, although I can’t really make out anything they’re saying. I wonder if I should go out there, try to be sociable—what it is that Liam wants of me. How he wants me to behave.