Endless Love: A Psychological Romance by M. James

Author:M. James [James, M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PNK Publishing
Published: 2024-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

20

CHARLOTTE

If you’re willing to listen.

There’s a part of me that wants to say no. That wants to push him away. I don’t know if I want to hear this, if I want more of my worldview to be challenged, if I want to hear the rest of the terrible skeletons in Ivan’s closet.

But I can also see this for what it is. I know we’re not far from our destination, not far from the place where my identity will be scoured clean, and I’ll be cut loose to do as I please, a new woman with a new identity, and a terrifyingly blank slate for a life. This is Ivan, baring himself to me, stripping himself not only naked but raw, and asking me to listen. To hear him tell me who he really is, at last.

For better or for worse.

I nod slowly, wrapping my fingers together as if they’re cold. The fire is surprisingly adequate against the chill, actually, but I need to do something with my hands. “Okay,” I say softly. “Tell me.”

“I told you that I was my father’s enforcer,” he says, his voice low and rough. “But I’m not sure you know what that means, really.”

“You said you enforced his rules. I assume with violence.” I twist my fingers tighter together, feeling the quick beat of my pulse form a ball of dread in my stomach. “I assume—a lot of violence.”

“I gathered information for him.” Ivan swallows hard, the movement of his throat visible in the firelight. “Lev is cruel and vicious, but he lets that brutality run away with him. I’m capable of controlling my emotions, precise and detached. I don’t take pleasure in pain the way he does. And that’s what—” He swallows again, his fingers digging into his jeans at the knee as he looks straight ahead at the flames. “That’s what a man who tortures other men for the Bratva needs to be able to do.”

A chill that has nothing to do with the temperature runs down my spine. I can’t even repeat what I just heard aloud. “Oh,” I whisper softly, my throat so tight that I’m half afraid I won’t even be able to speak. “That’s⁠—”

“Horrible. Beyond what you imagined, I’m sure. And it wore on me. You remember that I told you I didn’t kill that mountain lion, when I went on that trip?” He waits for me to nod, and then continues. “I’d gotten so tired of death, Charlotte. So exhausted with violence.”

“But you did it. For a long time.” I try to keep the judgment out of my voice, but it’s difficult. I can’t imagine being willing to do that. I can’t imagine what it would take for someone to be faced with that task, and not run in horror. What kind of person it takes to do it.

“I was horrified at first. But there was no way out. I was seventeen then, and there was no running from my father. No money that belonged to me, no path to freedom.

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