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I’m intrigued, and I do want to know what the dark dreams that haunt him are, but this is more pressing. “Please, Arsen. I have to know.”
I have to know why you don’t feel remorse for killing a child.
“More than ten years ago, I was Yevgeniy’s brigadier.” He sighs through his nose. “And Pyotr’s bodyguard. It was a job that brought me honor and prestige, but not pride.”
“Why?”
“Because that man was evil to the core. A rotten apple that didn’t fall far from the tree.”
My spine straightens sharply. “Wait, man?”
Arsen squints at my question. “Yes, Pyotr was twenty-two when I killed him.”
The admission is like an anvil has been shoved off my chest. Not that killing anyone is okay, but the fact that Arsen isn’t a child murderer is a relief. For some reason, I’d always imagined Pyotr as a different version of Ruslan. Impish, vulnerable, innocent to a fault.
It never crossed my mind that Pyotr was a grown man.
A rotten apple that didn’t fall far from the tree.
“Sorry,” I say, “Keep going.”
Arsen rubs his fingers over his mouth. “Pyotr got his kicks by hurting those who couldn’t fight back.” He turns a wary stare on me, like he isn’t sure if he should say the next part. “He took a particular liking to breaking the girls who were brought to the Winter Palace. He said it was like taking his vitamins each morning.”
Gritting my teeth, I give my head a furious shake. “That’s awful.”
“One night,” Arsen continues, “I stood outside, where he ordered, as he took a girl who was a wild child, even by Yevgeniy’s standards. I could hear her screams through the door. And for the first time, I questioned just why the hell I allowed it to continue.” His hands ball into fists. “I couldn’t stand by anymore. The girl screamed for her mother, even though she knew her mother was dead.”
Wait … Somehow, all of this sounds oddly familiar.
Unbidden, familiar words whispered in the dark echo in my ear.
She left this earth long before I ever realized that I even had a mother.
“So, I kicked the door open and demanded that he stop.” Arsen’s eyes take on a faraway look. “He told me to leave. Told me that it was his order. That this terrible thing he was doing was his right. His duty. And that my duty was to stand guard outside until he was done. And that’s when I saw her.”
The chains are proof that I’m property.
“Pyotr had her tied down.” Arsen is clutching the blanket so violently that it twists into a whirlpool of cloth. The vein in his neck pulses quicker. “And he went back to raping her. The girl screamed, begging me to save her.”
“I acted on impulse and ripped him off her.” Arsen begins to strangle the blanket, saying, “He was furious. He got in my face, arguing that plenty of the other men … other brigadiers just like me … had been with her since she was a little girl.”
I’m not a fragile little girl hoping for someone to come along and sweep me away into a happy home with smiles instead of sneers!
There isn’t a vein in his body that isn’t pumping with adrenaline. I ache to reach for him and comfort him, but I’m afraid if I try, he’ll lash out. Not intentionally, but he’s reliving a traumatic event, making it vividly real all over again.
Arsen ...
His mouth twitches into an open scowl. “I shot him without a second thought. Then I grabbed her, freeing her from that place. For good.”
Whatever lingering disgust I’d felt toward him over killing Pyotr vanishes in the air between us. I reach for his wrist, and when I touch him, he doesn’t lash out. Arsen looks at me with hollowed-out eyes. He’s waiting to be judged. Asking me to tell him if what he did was right or wrong.
He does what he has to in order to save the helpless. This is what Ulyana meant when she said he had a moral code. It’s admirable. It also makes him dangerous, because there’s little to leash him from committing one crime to prevent another. “I understand,” I say soothingly. “You did what you had to. For Mila.”
“And for my act of mercy,” his smile is sickly, “Yevgeniy murdered Kristina.”
The reminder makes me pull my hand away; he catches my fingers, holding me so I’m touching his warm skin.
“Galina,” he whispers, drawing me against his body, “I wish you’d asked me about this sooner. I get why you didn’t; you were frightened of how I would react. I promise, there’s nothing I will hide from you. You don’t have to fear asking me about the past or the truth.”
