Sold to the Bratva King novel · Chapter 21 of 32

Chapter 21: Chosen Again

The pizza came at seven-thirty.

It was from the place in my phone. The one I'd told a probate judge about.

We ate at my secondhand table. His jeans were in my washer.

He wore a pair of sweatpants out of Zoya's duffel bag. They stopped at his shins.

I made us talk before anything else.

"You first," I said. "What you did. Out loud. No excuses."

He put down his slice.

"I used you," he said, and didn't look away. "And after, I kept the reason to myself. I liked how you looked at me when you didn't know it."

It hurt to hear. It hurt worse that he said it so plainly.

"What did it cost you?"

"Four million dollars. Four chairs at the uncle's table." He turned his glass of water slowly.

"Two of my crews went over to him this week. My men ask each other, quietly, whether I'm still king."

"Are you?"

"I don't know. I've stopped asking."

I pulled my knees up onto my chair.

"Now me," I said. "What I want."

He waited.

"No more secrets. Anything you learn about me, I hear the same day. From you. Not from your lawyer's phone."

"Yes."

"You never buy any part of my half. Not the terminal, not Clean Slate, not a mop. Ever."

"Yes."

"Accidents, never murders. That still stands. Nobody gets hurt for me."

"Yes."

"And you stand on my right."

"I'll stand wherever you put me."

I looked at him for a long time.

"Is there anything else? Right now. All at once, the way Zoya says."

He thought. He actually thought, which I liked.

"The gray sedan is still on your corner," he said.

"I know. I take him coffee. He likes it with four sugars."

His mouth twitched.

"And I kept your dollar," he said. "It's in my jacket. I'm not giving it back."

I laughed, and it came out wet.

I got up and walked around the table and stood in front of his chair.

He tipped his head back to look at me. He didn't touch me. He waited.

"I choose you," I said. "Again. With my eyes open, this time. Knowing all of it."

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them, they were wet.

"Say it twice," he said hoarsely.

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