I tried running once, and that didn’t work.

So it’s time for me to try something else: fighting.

I’ll fight for myself, for my sanity, for my child.

I’ll fight for hope.

I’ll fight for love.

Most of all, I’ll fight with the belief that Kolya Uvarov is the man I believe he’s capable of becoming.

The man who loves me.

Unless he kills me first.

SAPPHIRE TEARS is the second and final book in the Uvarov Bratva duet. June and Kolya’s story begins in Book One, SAPPHIRE SCARS.

1

JUNE

The insignia on Adrian’s ring winks at me like it’s alive.

He smells different than I remember. Laundry detergent, mildew, stale sweat. He’s dressed differently, too. His clothes are old and baggy, as if he wants to disappear into them.

The only thing that remotely resembles the man I used to know is his smile.

Somehow, that just makes it all worse.

“I’m sorry about the gun,” he says. He sounds like he actually means it. “The mask, too. But I wasn’t sure if Kolya’s men would be following you and I didn’t want to take a chance.”

A chance at what, exactly? I’m on the verge of asking before I stop myself. Am I talking to a ghost? A figment of my imagination? A reincarnation?

Or just another lie?

“Stop the car.”

“I’m sorry, babe, but no can do. We need to get off the road now.”

I look out the windshield. The world has never looked more desolate than it does right now. It’s desaturated, as if someone drained the life and color out of it.

I must be dreaming, I decide. That’s the only way for any of this to make sense.

I rattle the passenger door handle, knowing even before I do that it’s locked. When that doesn’t do anything, I smack my fist on the window. The glass wobbles but doesn’t break.

“Let me OUT!”

“June, babe, calm down. You don’t have to freak out anymore. I’m here now. I’ve got you.”

I turn wildly to him. “How are you here? You died. I was at the damn funeral!”

He sighs miserably and nods. “I know. And I’m sorry for that most of all. I will explain everything to you. Just let me get off this road.”

He tries to touch me, but I jerk away from him. He flinches and his brow wrinkles, but then he puts his hand back on the steering wheel and doesn’t try to touch me again.

We drive silently for a while. I look around the car like there might be answers hidden somewhere in here.

But I find nothing. It’s a beaten old sedan, completely unremarkable. Scuffed cloth seats, a backseat brimming with fast food wrappers, half-empty plastic bottles of whiskey. Nothing that looks capable of raising a man from the dead.

Adrian senses my growing frustration and dread. He was always good at that when he put his mind to it. He knew what I was thinking before I did sometimes.