Chapter 36: Filthy Lies: Chapter 36

Mom died today.

She slipped away in the liminal space between night and morning, when the world feels malleable and death is just a long hallway from one room to another.

I was holding her hand when her fingers went slack, when her chest rose one final time and never fell again. It was peaceful—a sigh, not a scream. Nothing like the violence that’s become the soundtrack of my life.

I keep waiting for the breakdown. For the moment when my knees will buckle and my soul will leak out through the cracks in my carefully constructed armor.

But it doesn’t come.

Instead, there’s just this hollowness, this vacuum where grief should be. As if part of me already knew she was gone long before her heart stopped beating.

“You should eat something,” Vince says, setting a plate beside me at the kitchen island.

I stare at the food without seeing it. “I’m not hungry.”

“I didn’t ask if you were hungry.” His voice is firm but not unkind. “I said you should eat.”

I pick up a piece of toast, nibble the edge, then set it down. My stomach feels like it’s lined with crushed glass. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” he deadpans, then his expression softens. “Sofiya’s down for her nap. I’ve got the funeral home handling the arrangements, and Arkady’s dealing with hospital paperwork.”

I blink at him. “Since when do you manage any of that?”

His mouth quirks—not quite a smile, but close enough. “Since my wife needed me to.”

And that’s what finally shatters me.

Not the death. Not the body growing cold in the hospital morgue. But this—Vince’s quiet competence in the face of my grief.

He’s stepped into the spaces I can’t fill right now.

The sob that tears from my throat is feral, ripping through me like a bullet. I double over, pain radiating from somewhere deep in my chest, a place I didn’t know could hurt this much.

Vince doesn’t say anything. He just gathers me against him, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other splayed across my back. He holds me while I fall apart, solid and steady and so fucking strong that for a moment I hate him for it. For the composure, for the ability to function while my world implodes.

But I need it too much to push him away.

When the storm finally passes, my face is swollen, my eyes raw. I feel hollowed out—a shell of myself, scraped clean of everything but ache.

“Better?” he asks, his beard scratching my temple.

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.” He pushes hair from my face. “But you’ll get there.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

He just shrugs. “Because I believe in you.”

Something in my chest caves at his simple, unwavering faith.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Don’t be.” Vince fills a glass with water and hands it to me. “Just drink. Then sleep. Things will look different when you wake up.”

“Different doesn’t mean better.”

“No.” His thumb brushes my lower lip. “But it means not the same. And sometimes, that’s enough.”