Four Broken Pieces ✓

Fifty Two

I was standing by the window when they walked into the room. I heard Mikhail's soft exhalation of relief, and the bond between us stretched taut. They wanted to be near me now, to have me in their arms to know that I was as all right as I could be with everything that had happened. I could feel as much in the way their stares seemed to burn into the skin at the back of my neck, coercing me to face them.

Yet, they kept their distance and I kept mine. I loved them, loved my mother to the point that it had hurt me. No matter how strong love was, it shouldn't be strong enough to hurt and break someone like it had done to me. That was what made love the most powerful thing in the world. It was addictive and consuming, like a drug I'd always be hooked on to. And when I was deprived of it, reality became to painful to bear. 

Never again. I wouldn't give my heart so wholly like that to anyone ever again. And so I kept my distance instead of baring all the pain I crushed deep within myself. I could hide it; bury it deep enough so it never resurfaced again. I kept my voice cool and steady as I finally addressed them.

"Have you taken over?" It was a simple question but there was real pain in Mikhail's eyes as I turned to face him. I think he knew exactly what I was doing. I was shutting them out for the very first time in our relationship. They'd shared so many private nightmares of their own lives to me and I'd done the same. I couldn't do it anymore. 

I didn't want to think of what that would do to our relationship. I knew enough to know that it was our darkest moments that bound us together inextricably. We'd be nothing if it weren't for the secrets we shared. 

I wish I could tell them but to bare my heart to them made me so vulnerable.

I couldn't afford to break again. A part of me genuinely feared the pain that had assailed me in those terrifying moments.

"I did," Ivan replied tensely and I snapped back to reality to give him a nod. So it was over. In the most technical sense, we had won. We'd accomplished the greater good and unsurprisingly, it felt like we'd achieved nothing. They still had a gang to run and despite their good intentions, they were still involved in a world I wanted to run far away from even if I didn't want to relinquish them. 

"Is he dead," I asked? They knew who I was talking about but Ivan didn't offer me a reply. Alexei looked down like he believed that I would judge them for taking away a horrible man's life. He shouldn't feel guilty. That man deserved it after what he'd done to Alexei's family.

Besides, I'd done far, far worse but they didn't know. I'd killed an innocent and I'd almost raised a gun to my own mother. Had they forgotten that nod I'd given that I would forever regret?

I finally fixed Mikhail with a stern look when none of them answered me, and he nodded. A small weight lifted off my chest to think that he was dead and that his long line of destruction would end with my mother. No one else would be ruined. Something good had come of that night that had taken the one thing I loved most.

"Are you alright darling?" Finally, the question they'd been meaning to ask since they entered the room. Alexei blurted it out in a rush as if I'd slip away before he could ask it. His question was simple but the answer was far more complex. It was the moment I had to choose. To go back to how I'd been, where I'd loved with everything I had or to preserve what was left my heart even from the boys who loved me.

I was a coward and it was with a deep breath that I chose the second choice.

"I'm fine. I'll be fine." Alexei looked like he wanted to say more but he'd caught on to what I was doing. His lips pursed in disapproval and so did Ivan, whose eyes were narrowed on me.