Broken Horse

Chapter 21 - Sergei

It has been a month since Jacki, or Jacey... whichever one she was, destroyed my life and I was ready to leave town. I was ready to just go somewhere else and die. Every time I thought about what Jack... Jacey did, it haunts me like nothing else. The one complete and true love that I had, who was carrying my baby, looked me in the eye and lied to me in the worst of the worst ways. What Susie had done was nothing compared to this. Even my own brother was taking Jacey's side telling me that I was the one who screwed it up.

Jacey sent a few texts, but I couldn't look at them. I just deleted them all. I didn't care anymore. I didn't even know who she was. After I looked at my blank phone, more pain sliced into my heart, stabbing, dicing, and chopping it into the tiniest of pieces.

I did love her. I loved her so much that I wanted everything with her. The happiest of happiness, but maybe I was all wrong. Maybe that kind of love just didn't exist. I was just blinded.

As the elevator doors opened, I tossed the last of my bags out and let out a breath. Nikolay scratched the back of his head as he stood at the door waiting. My things would be delivered, but I am not too sure I even want them now. She tainted everything in the place and I just had to get rid of the thought of her. Selling the place to my brother was for the best.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his heavy lined windbreaker pants, he shrugged a little still wearing his teams sweatshirt. I felt bad for him knowing that his life was over in the NHL, but he wasn't too upset over it. As he said, it was time to move on. His leg would never be good enough to play professional and no one wanted him because of it. Though, they had given him one heck of a check to buy him out of the rest of his contract. And that check, he accepted without a fuss.

"I am more than sure." Glancing over the place, I cringed. This was where I held her, where she had held me for the first time after the passing of my father, and where I made love to her time and time again, created a life that I would never have. For what? All for a woman who I did not know.

His jaw tightened and he perched on his crutches, resting the foot of his casted leg on top of the other. "You are just angry right now. You give it a while, and you will see what a huge mistake you are making."

A mistake? I was the one who made the mistake? I blinked as I gawked at him wondering if I even heard him right. "She is the one..."

"She told you that her name was Jacki when you started class. So what? She was everything to you, Sergei. Everything? If she was everything to you, a name would not matter." He released his breath and it plummeted through the room. "Brother, you and I have been through so many times together. Pain, grief, loss, heartache. I have seen you at your worst, and you at mine. But, what I do know for sure is your love for that woman." 

"And I was wrong. Very wrong." My heart shattered even more just thinking of what she was doing now. Was she crying her eyes out? Was she hurting over what she did to me, or sitting there satisfied she pulled the wool over my eyes? Maybe it was all a game with her. Maybe it was all for money.

My family had money. Not just little amounts either. We came from specialists in the sciences. My father was one of the top geologists in the world. My grandfather was scientist, one well respected through Russia today. Aunts and uncles, they, too, held all classes of science. It was just in our blood. In all of our blood, except for Nikolay. He inherited mom's side with the athletic abilities that sent him into the NHL instead.

And what did I do? I bought that horse. I bought that house. I bought another horse knowing damn well she desperately wanted to find that soul and help piece it back together. I was a fool who played right into her hand. A blinded fool.