More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
To the little girl in me who found heroes boring and fell head over heels with villains.
I take a moment to focus on my surroundings and make sure I’m not daydreaming about the last book I read. Books have been my only escape
Too real
“You’re old enough now, so listen carefully, my boy.” Dad jams the gun against Mom’s forehead and she stares up at him with her usual haughty defiance, not even a single tear escaping her lids. “This is how you punish traitors, no matter how close they are to you.” He pulls the trigger.
What the actual.
After I saw the life leave my mom’s body when I was ten years old, I had an epiphany. Ah. Death is that easy. Death is a pull of a trigger, a splatter of blood, and empty eyes.
I reach out a hand, but all I grab is air. Panic like I’ve never felt in my life snaps my shoulder blades together and freezes me in place. Fuck no. This isn’t how it’s going to end.
“Get ropes!” I bark, then place my phone on a small rock, directing the flashlight forward before I dive straight into the freezing water.
Yan removes his and throws it over Lia’s body, not bothering to hide his malicious stare directed at me.
She might have jumped from a cliff to escape me, but that won’t be happening in this life. She’s my wife. My son’s mother. Fucking mine. And I’ll go through hell itself if it means keeping her there.
I know why she thought about giving up. To leave me. I was suffocating her, she said. I was torturing her. Those words dug a deep black hole into my soul, perhaps even worse than when she confirmed that she was cheating on me.
And because of that, I apparently tortured her, smothered her, and drove her to the edge of a cliff where death was better than being with me. “Fuck,” I curse under my breath, running a hand through my hair. How will I be able to take a step in a different direction now? Because I have to or I will lose her for good.
What he didn’t count on was that I would form a connection with them and that their loyalty would be absolute to me. Not him. Not the brotherhood. Me. Or at least Kolya’s is. Yan has been switching sides between my wife and me ever since she came into the picture.
Yan is such an ally, i love him
“That’s not what’s important right now,” Yan snaps. “Lia almost died.” My head tilts to the side to meet his harsh glare. “Watch your fucking tone if you don’t want your tongue cut out, and she’s Mrs. Volkov to you.” “I don’t care if you cut my tongue or my limbs, but someone obviously needs to tell you this, Boss.”
“Shut the fuck up, Kolya. You should’ve told him this a long time ago, but you chose not to and blindly took his side.” Yan breathes harshly through his nostrils, his anger still directed at me. “She was suffering and you knew it, but you chose to believe she cheated on you and let her bear your ruthless wrath. When the fuck could she even cheat on you when we shadowed her every step? She lost her previous life and was adapting to yours. She never tried to escape after that one time, because deep down, she wanted to be with you and Jeremy, but you had to suffocate her.”
YOU TELL EM YAN
“Just talk to her without being closed off.” Yan sighs. “Then you can kill me.”
Yan holds him by the shoulder. “Fucking finally! That’s what I’ve been saying all along.”
My wife blinks a few times, and as I witness life slowly creeping back into her, I make a vow to get her back, to make things right. Somehow.
Then he refused to sleep anywhere but on my lap and in my company.
“No, she doesn’t, but she recognizes you as a danger.” I pretend those words don’t cut through me like a blunt fucking knife.
In other words, her mind is very fragile and she’s the only one who can build it back up. Any form of duress will have the exact opposite effect. In fact, victims of dissociation escape into their minds as a response to trauma or abuse.”
“You talking to her is the reason she’s been having those panic attacks. She believes herself to be Winter and you keep calling her Lia.” She pauses. “It’d be better to put some distance between the two of you for now.”
Fuck psychotherapy and all its nonsense. Lia and I will write our own story, and for that to happen, she needs to stay by my side.
I experienced her complete surrender when she jumped off that cliff. Deep down, I know I need to let her go. Even if only temporarily. Even if it means shredding a fucking piece of my chest.
although I can’t see Lia inside, I can feel her. She’s become a part of me.
she slowly but surely has become an integral part of my life. She made me lose control more than once when I thought myself incapable of such blasphemy.
Lia didn’t just challenge me, she also seeped under my skin and clashed into my bones.
Because even though I need her in my life and crave the softness she brings to my ragged edges, I have apparently cut her too deep that I didn’t only reach the flesh, but I also severed tendons and veins. I told her I would be there for her until her scars healed, but I ended up adding a few of my own.
“Do you also believe I suffocated Lia?”
“Honestly? I believe you suffocated each other.”
“You didn’t give her many choices and she retaliated by being cold and putting distance between you two. She did that to protect herself, I believe, but you’re not a patient person, so the situation kept mounting until we reached this phase.” “You’ve had those beliefs all along?” “Yes.” “Then why haven’t you voiced them?” “You didn’t ask for my opinion, so I didn’t see the need to give it.”
“Your colleague will disguise Yan so he can keep an eye on Lia.”
YAN IS LARRY???????? that actually makes me so happy
It never gets any easier. Not the part about watching from afar. Or the part about going to an empty home without her. Or the part where Jeremy asks me when his mother is coming back.
Unlike before, Lia’s often smiling now and even laughing with Yan—or Larry, as she knows him.
I don’t like that she laughs with him yet doesn’t even remember me. I hate that she bonded with him in no time but had only panic attacks when I was by her side at the hospital. But at the same time, I like that she’s more carefree, that her demons aren’t getting the better of her.
Yan also mentioned that she hasn’t had a single nightmare since the day she became homeless.
A few weeks ago, I had Emily, one of our department store managers, give Lia a makeover while she was on sleeping pills. The store manager changed my wife to look like the pictures of Winter we found on surveillance cameras.
Thats actually so sweet
But deep down, I recognized that she believed in it. In fact, she probably buried it in her subconscious until this moment. Being homeless is akin to freedom to her.
When she comes out, I feel her before seeing her. It’s a strange connection that I didn’t realize I had with her until the day she fell from that cliff.
Yan slides to my side, smelling of trash. He rubs his nose with his dirty gloves and retrieves a cigarette. He looks like shit. But he doesn’t seem to mind as long as he gets to protect Lia.
Yan is currently Larry, an ex-veteran who has high cheekbones and graying hair. He’s always by Lia’s side unless he needs to touch up on his disguise, and that’s when either Boris, Kolya, or I keep an eye on her from afar.
“H-hey…we can talk about this, yeah? I’m an asset to you.” “Not when you touch my fucking wife.”
I make sure Yan dilutes her beer when she’s not looking. I won’t allow her to develop an addiction that she’ll regret.
Thats actually so romantic
I don’t think as I grab her by the elbow and pull her back. For a second, I bask in the feel of touching her, even though layers of clothing are separating us.
Lia startles but then flips off the driver when he calls her names. I make sure to memorize his license plate so I can cut out his tongue later.
I miss her. I miss my Lia, and the fact that she doesn’t remember me has been eating at my soul like the crashing waves that swallowed her that night.
She observes me intently as if she knows me. Maybe not on the surface, but deep in her heart. Hope blossoms in my chest because I know, I just know that I can have my wife back.
I killed someone. To protect Adrian, I didn’t think twice about ending a person’s life. That’s why I went mad. That’s why somewhere in my mind, being Winter made more sense for my sanity. She might have been homeless, but she was free and definitely not a murderer.
“I’m choosing me over you, Luca. I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. Leave me and my life in peace and go away. If you ever hurt Yan or anyone else I care about again, I won’t hesitate to shoot you like I shot your man.”
He brought me back.
Even when I chose to be Winter, my husband got me back and treated me as Lia. He also refused to call me Winter, even when I begged him to. Even when I threw tantrums and demanded it. Even when he could’ve easily made me into Winter. And that touches a deep, dark corner of my soul. One that had no light, no hope, and no way out. One that considered the cliff my last resort.
Being in Adrian’s company has always been an experience, but actually being the subject of his anger is no different than slamming into a volcano at the point of eruption. He might not burn me, but the threat is there, waiting, biding its time to swallow me whole.
