Drake Sisters 03 - Oceans of Fire

same.
    When they had been together in Russia, Abigail had always kept the use of magic in their lives to a minimum. He hadn’t thought much beyond her gift of getting others to speak the truth. Her abilities and those of her sisters were obviously far more than he had ever conceived. The wielding of magic seemed effortless, an everyday occurrence in the Drake sisters’ lives. It would always be a part of Abigail.
    “I’m not willing to live my life without you, Abbey. I’ve tried it. I tried burying myself in work. I took every dangerous case, every interesting case, anything I could think of, but nothing worked. I want you back. Tell me what I need to do to get you back.”
    “It isn’t that I don’t love you, Aleksandr. I loved you with everything in me. I admire your strength of resolve and respect your determination that is so much a part of you. I know it’s what makes you successful at the things you do. But at the same time, I don’t think I can live with them.”
    “That’s a cliché, a ridiculous thing to say when you aren’t willing to talk something out, and I’m not about to accept it from you. I do what I have to do to survive and to keep others alive. I’m not some maniac running around with a gun shooting people for no good reason. Hell yes, I took out Ignatev’s men. Every one of them I could get my hands on. I would have killed him if I could have gotten to him, but he had already melted into the shadows. That’s why I have a price on my head. He was going to have you killed, but first he wanted to torture you. It wasn’t going to happen. Can you understand that much about me? It wasn’t going to happen. Not to you .”
    “I just feel I’m in way over my head.” Loving him. Afraid of losing him. Fearing his very strength. She was so mixed up. How had she gotten so pathetically fragile when it came to loving him?
    “You’re not a coward, Abbey. You wouldn’t swim in the sea with dolphins if you were. You wouldn’t have pulled that fisherman out of the water, or even attacked the shooter when you had the opportunity.
    You can do all those things, yet you’re afraid to let yourself be with me. If I leave, will you love me less?
    Will it take away the pain of what you consider a betrayal?” He put his tea on the floor and caught her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. “I’m condemned either way. I’m condemned for not protecting you when I didn’t know you were in trouble, and I’m condemned for getting you out of a very dangerous

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    situation. Which is my real sin?”
    “Making me love you.” The truth spilled out of her. She pulled away from him. “I don’t want to love you.”
    “Well, welcome to the club, sweetheart. I didn’t want to love you either. My life was a hell of a lot easier before you came into it.”
    She sighed softly. “I’ve never had to live the way you’ve had to live. You can be ruthless if the circumstances call for it. How do we live together when our lives are so different? When we come from two such different cultures and backgrounds?”
    “Do you even understand the choices I made? Would you have done it differently?”
    “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. You nearly destroyed me. When I thought you’d betrayed me it felt as if you’d torn out my heart and the wound just wouldn’t heal. I hate saying that. It’s so melodramatic, but it’s the truth. Do I want you to have that kind of power over me again? Someday you’ll be working on something terrible, some hideous crime, and you’ll have to make decisions I’m not certain I can face. What do I do then?” Tears shimmered in her eyes. Her throat was raw. “You can’t be anything but who you are. I wouldn’t love you the same if you stopped being you. How do I change enough to accept that ruthless streak in you?”
    “I don’t know, Abigail. You have to decide if you love me enough. You think that I have all this power over you, but in reality it’s the other way around. You walked away from me and you didn’t look back.
    You can call it self-preservation if you want to, but in the end, you didn’t love me enough to live with what I have to do. And yes, it isn’t always pretty and wrapped up in a neat bow. In order for me to track the kind of criminals I normally track, I have to get down in the filth and slime with them. There are evil people in this world, truly evil, Abbey.