by Grace Reagal
“He has a really good looking back,” I mumble to myself. After a couple of seconds, he disappears behind the leaves.
While waiting for him to come back, I finger the grass underneath me. It’s moist with condensation and feels fresh against my skin. This whole place looks like it was cleansed with holy water.
And not like a joke. Actual holy water. A new beginning. The start of a new world. It hasn’t been contaminated by us yet.
I hear a rustle in the bushes and my eyes fly up. I brace my arms in a position to hit. Everything in me is ready to fight.
Valentin’s face appears, ducking underneath some leaves. There’s a relaxed smile on his face. “It’s only me, Kitten. No need to fret.”
I want to say something feisty back, but I bite my tongue.
I lay my hands on my crisscrossed lap and breathe a small sigh of relief.
My eyes narrow at what he’s holding. “Is that…” He walks toward me. I know my eyes are rudely wide. “What is that?”
It’s a black instrument case.
He sits down across from me. He puts the case on his lap, and opens it, revealing a beautiful black acoustic guitar.
My brows pull in together. “How…where did you even get that?”
He nods behind him. “I keep it in a place here.”
A small smile creeps up on my face. “So, you play?”
“Yes. Does that surprise you?”
I decide to go the honest route. “You don’t seem like you have enough patience for a musical instrument.”
His fingers work the tuning pegs. “You weren’t surprised when you learned I worked out.”
“Uh, of course not. Working out is more of your style. You get to punch and throw things, probably imagining it was someone you didn’t like.”
He cocks his head and regards me for a moment, his fingers still on the strings.
Then as if having decided something, he goes back to tuning. He strums a couple of the strings. “Playing takes the same kind of passion and strength, Kitten. Do not be so quick to judge.”
I open my mouth to speak and then close it again.
I always took for granted the importance of gathering your thoughts before speaking.
I think about what Valentin said for a long moment.
He is right.
I nod sheepishly, playing with the grass beside me. “You’re right. I’m sorry for assuming…”
“But you tell anyone I play the fucking guitar and I will kill you.” His eyes glint and humor coats his words.
I choke out a laugh. “Yeah, yeah.” I take a new breath. “So how did you start?” I wave toward the guitar. “Like, what made you want to express yourself in an instrument like this?”
He looks up for a moment, before going back to working it. He places his left hand on the fretboard and feels his way around. His right arm curves around the body naturally. He plays some notes.
“When we were little, my little brother—”
“Nate?” I interrupt.
He nods. “Yeah, Nate. He loved to sing. He would belt out songs all around the house, and even sing for the guests who came to our house. Our father hated it; thought music and singing was for pussies—”
“Women?” I interrupt again to clarify.
Valentin’s lips curl at the edges. “Yeah, Kitten, women. But Nate wouldn’t drop it. And each time he caught him, he would beat him.”
My face turns sour. “He sounds awful.”
Valentin doesn’t register my words. He simply continues. “Finally, I had enough of it. So I bargained a harmonica off the streets, and each time our father would come into the room, I would start playing it with whatever song Nate was singing. My father wasn’t happier and he beat me the first few times.”
I have no idea how to react. I mean, my mother hit me, but it was spanking, not abuse.
“Then when he realized I wasn’t going to stop, he took my harmonica and broke it.”
My eyes are wide. I lean in toward him. “And then what happened?”
Valentin chuckles, “You are way too interested in the story.”
“You’re the one who started this, so tell me, please.”
“All right, only because you said please.” He winks. “Then I walked out to the market and bought a guitar. It was a better instrument anyways.”
“Why?”
He sighs in frustration. “I am telling you why. Stop being so impatient.”
I lick my dry lips quickly. “Okay, sorry, sorry. I’m just…invested.”
He looks away.
“Then I brought it home and started to play it to a song, Nate’s favorite song.”
“And your father?”
“He saw us on the living room floor, and said, ‘how the fuck did I give birth to two pussies in one day?’ Me being a smartass said, ‘Actually, Mother gave birth to us.’ Needless to say, that did not go well.”
He sounds far away from here. I can see he’s falling into the memory of that day.
And from the pain in his eyes, I know it is a horrible one. Before I can think, I put my hand on his arm and say, “I’m sorry.”
His eyes slowly turn toward me and lose their glazed look. He blinks, and I realize what unnaturally long eyelashes he has. For a moment there’s a connection between the two of us, some kind of understanding.
But he quickly shakes me off, seeming uncomfortable. He continues the story, his voice colder now. “So then my father drags me outside to an outdoor house where all the people who have wronged him are kept. He grabs one of the men from the rooms and throws him on the ground. He looks down at me, and with the coldest eyes I have ever seen, rips one of the strings from the guitar. He…”
I can see his Adam’s apple moving as he swallows hard.
My heart is hurting for him. But I have no idea how to say it in a way that he won’t take offense to my words or brush me off. So I simply listen.
“He gives it to me and says, ‘You want to play the fucking guitar? Then play it like a man. Kill with it.’”
My heart pounds against my chest as if it’s about to burst. I look down long enough to realize my fingers are digging into my palms.
Guess that habit is making a recurrence again.
But I can’t find it in me to care about that right now. All I can think is:
Tell me you didn’t do it. Tell me that wasn’t what broke your innocence.
“Tell me,” I whisper after what feels like an eternity.
He avoids my eyes.
“I was eight years old,” he says after a while. His voice is a low growl.
I inhale sharply. “Did you?”
…kill a man?
“I was a child,” he says. I can hear his voice break. Valentin freakin’ Nikolaev.
But all I want is the answer. Was I here, alone, out in the woods, with a murderer?
END OF PART 1
Acknowledgements
These past couple of years have taught me countless hard and rewarding lessons about writing, finishing, and publishing a book. I've cried, screamed, cried again--those times in joy--laughed...and through it all, I could count on two people to be my rocks: B and M.
I have no doubt that I would have stopped midway through this process if not for the girl who screamed at me in second grade more than a decade ago, who isn't afraid to tell me I'm wrong, and who is as much a part of my family as the other eight people in my home. Betty, you are everything to me; I want the whole world to know and I want it inscribed in a book forever. Thank you, my love, for taking my midnight calls, reading my emails and checking my messages when I was too stressed and being my guardian angel.
To Mia, you are the only writer I know in real life and so you mean the world. Thank you for always being here for me (physically), for letting me rant and for understanding what I'm going through. I can't wait to one day hold your book in my hands...we'll read each others' on the subway like we promised.
To my little sister. I know you're only two yea
rs old and it will be a long time before you learn how to read, let alone be allowed to read this book, but whenever the time comes that you pick this up, I want you to know this: you make me smile all the damned time. You help me see the big picture of the world and suddenly, it's all right when I am with you. Every time you laugh, my heart bursts with joy and I forget what I wanted to cry about. I love you with everything I am and have and I want to give you the world. One day, I will.
And lastly, thank you to my readers in my Facebook group. There are too many of you to name but I'll try anyway (If I don't get you now, I'll get you next time): thank you Shaqayla, Hida, Ashellmee, Krati, Shannan, Jessica, Di, Kristina, Kom, Jewel, Theresa, Krystyna, Sam for being sweet, kind and supporting everyone, Yara for cheering me on through everything, Brooke for being such a perfect human, Deanne for sharing your life with me, Goli for screaming endlessly and being hyper about everything, Arun and Abdul for dealing with being two of the few males in the female-dominated group, Maithly for simply being precious, Esther for always supporting my posts even when they're trash, Pierii for giving me endless laughs, and last but not least Yvette, who won't stop harassing my chapters with endless love through the years. I know it's dangerous to name names from a group of over a thousand people because there are so many more of you; you all light up my world in your own way: this book, for better or worse, is for you.
xoxo
Grace
About the Author
Grace Reagal is a young author who is studying medicine by day and serial writing by night. She has garnered over 88K readers on Wattpad and Radish and over 20 million reads.
She writes about mafia men without hearts and the women who find it for them. She writes because the most beautiful thing for her is creating a world where she and her readers can escape to.
When she’s not writing, she can be found crying, studying, listening to One Republic and Lumineers, questioning her existence, reading steamy books under the covers or daydreaming about her characters. Her goals for her life includes becoming a neurosurgeon, publishing a book, and finally living simply in the woods alone while crafting a work that’s going to change the world (whether it’s published or not is not of any importance).
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