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finally safe again. Whenever that might be," he added.
Her tired sigh told him she didn't like that option. "And the second choice?"
Throat tight, he offered her the last form of protection possible. "Marry me."
Chapter Eleven
Marry me.
The shocking words ricocheted around in my head. Thrown completely for a loop, I
stumbled to the closest chair and dropped onto the cushion without any finesse. My
knees wobbled and my tummy pitched as I tried to figure out if he was serious.
"Marry you?"
He slowly sat down on the coffee table. There was no masking the pain that caused
him to grimace. I ached for him and reached out to soothingly pet his knee. In one swift
movement, he captured my smaller hand in his. "You deserve so much better than me. I
know that. It's selfish of me to even ask you to be my wife."
"Why?" I had to know what he was thinking. What had motivated him to ask me
something so incredibly serious?
Head down, he traced my middle finger. "I need you by my side. This whole
damned city is a powder keg and one spark is about to send it up in flames. I have to
know you're protected. I have to know you're right here."
What had spurred his sudden proposal? Certain I wouldn't like the answer, I asked,
"Where were you tonight?"
Nikolai's gaze finally met mine. With a heavy sigh, he confessed, "I was meeting
with Lorenzo Guzman."
My lips parted on a gasp. "The drug lord? I didn t know you were in business with
him."
"There's a lot you don't know about me, Vee. I'm willing to tell you some of it but
not all of it. What you need to know right now is that there's a price on your head and
Lorenzo Guzman bought it. He's using it as leverage against me."
My heartbeat sprinted. "For what?"
"A gun deal," he said reluctantly. "His buyer is having problems and he needs a new
supply line."
I licked my lips. "And then what? I mean he's not going to stop with just these
guns, right? He's going to keep beating you over the head with the hit on me to make you
do what he wants."
"He's going to try."
"What does that mean?"
"It means he's underestimated me. He has no idea how far I'm willing to go to finish
this."
I gripped his fingers even tighter. "Please don't do anything terrible for me. I
couldn't bear it." My voice cracked as I thought of what he might have already done just
to get me back. "Please."
His Adam's apple bobbed up and down. "I can't promise you that, Vee. I won't sit
here and make a promise I don't intend to keep. I can't have any more lies between us.
The last one nearly killed us. No more, angel moy."
It struck me then how deeply he cared for me and how determined he was for our
relationship to move forward with a solid foundation of truth. Even if that truth wasn't
something I wanted to hear&
"You know what I am. You know who I am. This is me, Vee. This is all I can offer."
I heard the shame filling his voice. Cupping his jaw, I raised his gaze to mine. "I
know what you are."
"I'm a criminal who shot a little girl and then lied to her for eleven years. That's
what I am."
A painful band squeezed my heart. "I've forgiven you for that. We have to move
forward, Nikolai. It's done."
"For you, maybe," he said glumly. "For me? I will never forgive myself for what I
did."
There was nothing I could say to change his mind or assuage the terrible guilt he
carried. I grazed my fingertips down his cheek in a soothing gesture. His eyelids briefly
closed. Such longing appeared on his face. How long had it been since someone had
touched him with kindness?
"The night I shot you& when I was kneeling over you and holding my hand to your
bleeding belly& that was the first night I had prayed since childhood."
I wasn't supposed to know about the abuse he'd survived as a child. When that
crazy woman had tried to kill Lena and Yuri, she'd had her cohort leave a cryptic note
written in Russian on Lena's pillow. Unable to decipher it, Lena had sent me a snapshot
via her phone. There, in red ink, I'd read all about the way little Nikolai had been pimped
out for money.
After what he'd suffered at the hands of that disgusting orphanage director and his
pedophile clients, I wasn't surprised that Nikolai had divorced himself from a
relationship with God. I could only imagine how many unanswered prayers he'd sent out
into the great beyond while being abused so horrifically.
"You survived," Nikolai continued, "and I knew then that I'd been charged with
looking after you. It's my duty to keep you safe. I feel it here." He dragged my hand to his
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