Chapter 70

“Cherriot.” Dolly’s voice turned stern.

He had not heard that tone in a long time. She had spoken that exact way after Cherriot’s mother awakened in the hospital following a dangerous decision. Cherriot had been sent from the room before hearing what Dolly said, but from that day onward, his mother never again displayed the same depth of despair before him, nor had she seemed to be suppressing it by force.

“If that man had grown sick of you, he would have left the instant he was discharged,” Dolly said firmly. “A person like him doesn’t move for profit. He acts according to his own will.”

Cherriot knew that. Yuri had never accepted the job for money in the first place. Even after Cherriot spoke cruelly to him, Yuri accompanied him because he could not leave him exposed to danger. Cherriot knew all of it. Yet, still afraid, he asked again.

“But you heard what he said in the hospital. He wanted to repay the hospital and surgical costs with the money he received for the job. If I hadn’t refused so fiercely, he really would have done it. It frightened me, Dolly. It felt like he was trying to put distance between us.”

“I don’t remember your mother and me raising you to be such a coward,” Dolly muttered, then tilted her head and amended, “Though perhaps we did shelter you too much…”

“We did raise me a little like that,” Cherriot seized the opportunity to assign her part of the blame. It was true that Dolly and Benji had both worried over him excessively while he grew up.

“In any case,” Dolly said, dismissing the deflection, “have you forgotten what he said to you before he even mentioned repayment?”

“…How could I forget?”

It was the first day Yuri had recovered enough to sit upright and hold a proper conversation. Until then, he had awakened only briefly before drifting back to sleep, leaving them unable to exchange more than a few fractured words. On that day, however, Yuri had been waiting for Cherriot.

The doctor had just granted permission for Yuri to begin a proper diet, and Cherriot had entered the room carrying soup, absolutely delighted by the news. The moment remained perfectly vivid in his mind.

Weight loss had sharpened the angles of Yuri’s face. His pale, bloodless lips were closed, and shadows deepened his blue eyes as he watched Cherriot from the bed. Cherriot was so overwhelmed by the sight of him sitting upright and gazing back that he had stopped in his tracks, staring as though entranced.

After they exchanged countless silent glances, Yuri finally spoke. “Are you all right, Cherriot?”

It was not the question Cherriot had expected. A man who had just returned from the edge of death should have asked what had happened, or why he was there. Those would have been the reasonable questions. Instead, Yuri asked after Cherriot.

“You weren’t hurt, were you?” Yuri had murmured. “I… didn’t have time to check. I should have looked more carefully.”

What is this man talking about? Cherriot had thought, dumbfounded.

“I’m sorry,” Yuri added softly.

Why? What could you possibly be apologizing for? Cherriot lost the power to speak, feeling as though he had been struck across the face.

He had smiled constantly during Yuri’s recovery to ensure the man never felt anxious. In that single moment, however, his carefully constructed expression collapsed. The instant Yuri apologized, Cherriot’s mind went entirely white, and a crushing pain clamped around his heart.

Why are you sorry? I’m the one who should be kissing your feet and begging for your forgiveness.

Joseph did what he did because I stupidly went to the villa alone. You came all that way by yourself for someone as pathetic as me. You were the one who dragged me out of that hell when I was too terrified to do anything.

I should have shown you heaven. Instead… I left you drowning in a pool of your own blood.

The brief, horrific instant in which Cherriot believed everything had ended rushed back to him. He had been certain they would both die. Then Yuri had appeared like a miracle and carried him through death itself. From the moment Cherriot saw the man he had never expected to find there, he believed everything would somehow be all right.

When they finally escaped the villa and Cherriot saw other people, relief had flooded him. He had been terrified, but Yuri’s presence made the terror bearable. I want Yuri beside me. The trust doesn’t matter anymore.

His heart had been swelling with those thoughts. Cherriot had been hurrying toward Yuri, desperate to tell him everything, when Yuri suddenly turned with a troubled expression. It happened in a flash. Confusion flashed across the deep blue eyes, and Yuri turned his head away.

The sight of his back sent a cold dread sliding down Cherriot’s spine. Terror struck him like lightning.

A sharp gunshot cracked through the air.

Birds perched in the nearby trees exploded into flight. Yuri’s body collapsed.

He had never shown an ounce of such weakness before Cherriot. Yet, Yuri folded as though every single thread of strength in his body had been cleanly cut. The shot stunned Cherriot’s ears into a ringing silence. Police officers rushed toward the direction of the gunfire. A guard, Benji, or perhaps one of the relatives standing nearby, seized Cherriot’s arm.

The instant someone touched him, the ground seemed to vanish beneath his feet, as though his organs were being torn out through his soles. He thought he screamed. He could not hear himself and had no idea what words he shouted; Yuri was the only thing left in his field of vision. With a desperate strength born from nowhere, Cherriot threw off everyone restraining him and stumbled forward, nearly falling as he ran.

His fingers finally reached Yuri where he lay upon the green grass. The blue eyes had already closed. Yuri lay quietly with his chin tipped slightly upward, looking like a man sleeping in perfect peace. His left hand hung limp and mangled, the palm torn open, yet it still clutched the gun.

Because Yuri always wore black, Cherriot could not see where the blood was coming from. He only understood that the wound had to be catastrophic, because the grass around them was rapidly turning a dark, heavy red. The smell of blood became overpowering. Its metallic stench stabbed into Cherriot’s nose until he thought he would vomit. His hands shook so violently that his arms ached at the sockets, while his eyes burned as though boiling in their tears. Sweat and tears streamed down his face as he called Yuri’s name dozens, hundreds of times.

Someone approached and attempted to drag Cherriot away again, but he refused to budge. He covered Yuri with his larger body so no one could hurt him again, holding him tightly to prevent the fading warmth from leaving. Even after the emergency medics arrived, it took several men to pull Cherriot away.

Cold sweat still covered him whenever the memory returned. The event was over; Yuri was safe now. Yet the agonizing hours spent watching Yuri’s white face lose its remaining color had not vanished from his mind. That day, the dependable man who had always stood silently at Cherriot’s side seemed unbearably fragile for the very first time. The pity and terror had nearly driven Cherriot mad.

And then, that poor, wounded man had finally awakened, only to worry about Cherriot. Yuri was the one who suffered. Yuri was the one who had been shot, nearly died, and lost enough blood to risk immediate shock. Yet he apologized.

Cherriot had stared at him in numb disbelief, his mind emptied of everything. Then, realizing that a man who had died and returned was apologizing to him, something inside Cherriot completely shattered. Tears began falling before he could restrain them. His heart twisted exactly as it had on the grass that day. He clenched his hands in a desperate attempt to remain composed, but there was no escape from the grief.

In the end, Cherriot had dragged Yuri tightly into his arms and rubbed his cheek against him, desperate to feel physical proof that he lived. Yuri’s skin was cool, but far warmer than it had been on the grass. Cherriot cried for tens of minutes, begging him again and again never to apologize. Had Dolly not heard the sobbing, opened the hospital room door, and pulled Cherriot away, he might have clung to Yuri for hours.

Looking back, Cherriot wanted to strangle himself for exhausting an injured man. At the time, however, sheer panic had stripped him of all reason. Nothing mattered except confirming that Yuri was alive and held within his arms.

“Then isn’t that your answer?” Dolly asked now, her voice cutting through his memories as though the matter were absurdly simple. “The first thing he did after waking was ask whether you were safe. He thought of you before himself. What proof could possibly be clearer?”

Some of the fear that had remained buried within Cherriot since resolving to confess finally began to ease. He could not truly know Yuri’s heart without hearing it from Yuri himself, but when he reconsidered the signs Dolly had pointed out, a little of his certainty returned.

I’ve never been afraid someone might reject me before. Of course, I’ve never actually decided to confess to anyone before either. I didn’t know saying, “I like you, and I want to be with you,” could be this terrifyingly difficult.

Cherriot had never understood how frightening it could be to love someone sincerely and choose to pursue a deeper bond. He had spent his life preoccupied with honoring his dead father and had never been honest about his own desires. Now, at twenty-eight, he was stumbling through his first real love like a complete novice. He had entertained countless partners in the past without ever giving away his heart; as a true lover, Cherriot was probably no more experienced than a thirteen-year-old boy.

Yet even when he found himself pathetic, he did not hate this vulnerable part of himself. The man who had reduced him to such helplessness was Yuri Kiselyov.

“Instead of sitting beside me wallowing in misery, go home and speak honestly with him,” Dolly said, breaking his train of thought. “You’ll never know what another person thinks unless you ask. Nothing gets solved until you face it, Cherry. You’ve played hockey your entire life—how do you not understand that?”

“I was already planning to confess the moment I got back,” Cherriot muttered.

From the instant Yuri had said Cherriot no longer needed to praise him out of guilt, Cherriot had become desperate. This was not the time to leisurely search for a perfect moment or prepare some grand, cinematic declaration. Yuri had misunderstood something fundamental, and Cherriot needed to reveal his true feelings before anything else. Thinking about it now, Cherriot had never properly told Yuri he loved him after pushing him away. Being too consumed with Yuri’s recovery had merely been an excuse born from his own guilt. Even if Yuri no longer wanted him, Cherriot should have told him how he felt the exact moment he awakened.

“That’s exactly what you should do,” Dolly approved. “A person needs the courage to face difficult things. A man especially.”

While Cherriot unexpectedly poured out his worries to Dolly, they reached their destination. He parked before his grandparents’ building, situated on some of the most valuable land in Boston, and glanced up at the tower rising high overhead. His grandparents were waiting inside.

After switching off the engine, Cherriot drew a slow, stabilizing breath. He had resolved to do this from the moment Yuri collapsed, but the prospect of speaking to his grandparents still made him incredibly tense. Their contact had dwindled after his father died. Their relationship had deteriorated further when Cherriot announced his intention to become a professional hockey player, and before the recent catastrophe, he had possessed no desire to see them at all.

His grandparents had attended the family party that fateful day. Upon learning that their youngest son had devised a murderous scheme for money, Cherriot’s grandfather had fainted. Fortunately, he had no serious preexisting illnesses and suffered no lasting harm, but the family atmosphere had remained heavier than a house in mourning ever since.

At precisely such a time, Cherriot had come to tell his grandparents that he intended to formally renounce the trust. He had considered the decision for two long months. Dolly was the first person he had consulted, and he had told his mother only the previous day. Dolly raised no objection, merely advising him to continue playing professionally for at least another ten years before retiring. His mother had responded only that she understood, leaving Cherriot entirely unable to guess what she truly thought.

“I’ll be back,” Cherriot said.

“All right.” Dolly remained in the passenger seat and nodded, clearly intending to wait for him.

Before closing the car door, Cherriot moistened his dry lips and asked a question that sounded almost like a thought spoken aloud to himself. “Do you think Mother was disappointed?”

Dolly, who had taken out her phone and was looking at the screen, lifted her eyes toward him. Seeing the raw tension in Cherriot’s face, she gave a quiet snort of amusement.

“Madison entered the terrifying Goodnight family for one reason and one reason alone,” Dolly said softly. “The only thing that child ever wanted was Chelsea Goodnight.”

Cherriot’s face slowly brightened.

“Madison wouldn’t want money that had to be nourished with human lives either,” Dolly added, her expression softening. “If we’d understood how desperately you were trying to protect that trust, we should have told you sooner.”

Dolly sighed, tapping her phone screen. “I ought to call Maddy and apologize for the many ways we raised you incorrectly. Now go. Don’t stand there interfering with a lady’s time.”

Cherriot broke into a brilliant, genuine grin. The face of a man finally freed from a burden he had forced himself to carry held no remaining trace of worry. There was only anticipation for the first day of the life he would now greet freely. As his eyes curved with happiness, a deep dimple appeared in his cheek.

“A true gentleman knows better than to intrude upon a lady’s time,” Cherriot teased. “I suppose I should remove myself for your sake.”

“Indeed. And don’t forget that a gentleman should have the courtesy to bring a bouquet when he goes to confess.”

“I’ll remember!” Cherriot answered brightly. He closed the door and disappeared toward the building.

Dolly watched his retreating figure for a long time. She replayed the sight of his brilliant smile and the dimple carved into his cheek, then remembered what a certain man had said to her two months earlier: “But even so, I hope he’ll smile.”

“Hah.” Dolly clicked her tongue affectionately and dialed Madison.

The man who had promised to protect Cherriot had done far more than simply keep his word. He had accomplished something Dolly had believed no one else ever could.

“He really did make him smile,” she murmured to herself, laughing softly as Madison answered the call.

“Dolly? Did you get Cherriot there safely?” Madison’s voice came through the line.

“Yes. He was worrying that you might not be all right, but he walked in with his head held high.”

“Thank you.”

The woman had spoken very little since losing the man she loved so cruelly. She fell silent for a moment, as was her usual habit, but when she continued, her voice sounded brighter than it had in a long time. “The next time I see Cherriot, I’ll tell him he made the right choice.”

“That’s a good thought, Maddy.”

“Yes.” After a brief, noticeable hesitation, Madison asked another question. “Is Yuri all right? Cherriot won’t tell me very much, so I don’t really know how he’s doing.”

Dolly smiled deeply. In the way Madison tried to conceal what she truly wanted to ask, she resembled her son far more than she resembled his father.

“I haven’t seen his face yet because Cherriot keeps him tucked away so tightly even I’m not allowed near him,” Dolly chuckled, “but he seems to be doing remarkably well.”

“That’s a relief.” Madison released a soft, long-held breath. Then, in a voice clearer and lighter than before, she began speaking to her oldest friend for the first time in what felt like ages. “I hope that boy remains beside Cherriot for a long time. Benjamin still seems to think he’s dangerous, but when I met Yuri, I felt the exact same way I did when I first met you.”

“Did you?” Dolly asked, amused. “And how exactly did you feel when you first saw me?”

“Hmm.” Madison considered the question, then laughed softly. The quiet sound drifting through the phone bore a fleeting, beautiful resemblance to Cherriot’s laughter. “I’ll tell you later.”

“When is later?”

“After you bring Cherriot home, perhaps? It’s been a long time since I had anything you cooked.”

“Oh, honestly. I suppose I have no choice,” Dolly groaned playfully. “I’m doing it only because it’s you, Maddy. But it won’t be free. Have a cold bottle of white wine waiting.”

“All right. I will.”

The shared laughter of two women who had relied upon each other through long years of profound loss filled the quiet cabin of the car.

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