I kept going, needing to get it over with, I’d never laid out the whole sordid story and Jolie deserved it more than anyone. “Then he sent me photocopies of the contracts, my name on the first one. My father told me it was him or me. I was twenty-two years old, used to a certain lifestyle, desperately wanting my fees paid so I could go back to Uni, and heartbroken. I was heartbroken and angry, Jolie. It’s no excuse, but that’s what it is. My father made sure I didn’t get to walk away. Irina’s grandfather ordered the hit, my father motioning his agreement. It was him or me.”
“I presume your father’s dead too?”
“Yes. He put a gun to his head, the coward’s way out. Irina’s father was a drug addict and well, you know as well as I do what happens to addicts. Lev wanted a fresh face, someone likeable, and they decided it was me whether I wanted it or not. Their plan worked, I was too selfish to think beyond saving myself.”
“Yannick.” My name sounded like a plea, hurting us both. “I don’t know what to do with this. It shouldn’t change anything, but you have to understand why it does.”
God, I did, I absolutely did, and it was why I’d taken so long to tell her, my secrets were heavy and grim and not to be put at anyone’s feet lightly. At the end of the day, I’d murdered my brother. I’d murdered a man I’d loved because I’d been angry and couldn’t see any other way out of the impossible situation others had put me in. The confession was terrible. I couldn’t blame her for walking away, I’d just dumped a heap of heavy shit on her shoulders. What I’d told her was enough to make anyone run.
“Your organisation has the worst reputation,” she rightfully said.
“There was nothing left to care for. I never took another life, not after Yosef. I don’t have it in me. The men I call my brothers have always stepped in to keep that burden from me, like they knew it was a step too far. They protected me the way my brother and father should have.”
“Taking one life is one too many.”
For the first time since the day I’d done the worst thing in the world, I let a tear fall, afraid once they started, I wouldn’t stop. “I know, Jolie. Believe me, I know.”
The most beautiful woman I’d ever met, stood there, tears brimming in her eyes, the look on her face crestfallen, her heart most likely shredded. Between us, the pain and hurt tainted everything.
“So what? For fifteen years you were beholden to who? Your father? Irina?”
“Me. To pay penance. They robbed the luxury of making my own choices from me. It was Yosef’s life I led, whether my father had wanted it to be or not. I wasn’t allowed to forget for a single second, Irina’s father blackmailed me. He took a video and said I could spend the next fifteen years married to his daughter and making his organisation the most formidable on the streets of London. Or I could join Yosef. Sometimes they threatened me with jail, always threats, none I thought I could escape until they got what they wanted, and I’d served my time by being the good little puppet they wanted.”
“And now?”
“Lev was a lot more reasonable than he should have been.” He shouldn’t have let someone like me walk away. “It’s my past. I’m done. Lev promised, and I have to trust he keeps his word.”
“Is it safe? Will you be safe?”
“I’m safer than I’ve ever been, you are too, if that’s what you’re worried about. Getting involved with me does not make you a target. Lev and Tayte have both sworn, and Tayte is the kind of man who doesn’t break promises of such magnitude.”
Jolie took a deep breath, her hand at her neck, then nodded. Shocking the hell out of me, she climbed up the bed and huddled into my lap. With her hands on my cheeks, she pressed a kiss to my mouth then took the longest of times searching my face.
“Understand how difficult this is for me to say this,” she said. “I want you to leave. This is a lot to take in and I can’t even begin to process what you’ve told me while you’re here.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat, agreeing with a nod. I could have full-on cried, a grown man who had cut off fingers and broken bones without wincing, yet this woman had almost reduced me to a blubbering mess. When she bumped her forehead to mine, I knew I hadn’t heard the worst.
“I don’t know if I’ll see you again, if this stops right here or not. You need to leave me be for now, Yannick. Please. It’s all I ask. Give me some time.”
“Okay.” The word was croaked and forced, all I could get out.
“Thank you. Whatever comes, it was such a pleasure to have met you, to have spent time with you. You’ve taught me a thing or two, you know?” She laughed - this sad, pathetic thing that made me close my eyes and draw in a breath - then she kissed me gently again and ran her hand around to cup my jaw. “You are such a beautiful man. I’m sorry.”
I didn’t protest or reach for her
