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But I couldn’t take that risk. I couldn’t risk that she’d want to go, we’d leave the building, and Finch would get her. Again. Artur might have been behind her capture, but it was for Finch. He was coming for her. He’d take her from me, put her through hell, and kill her before I could save her. I’d been in this exact position before, and those empty eyes stalked me, unforgiving.Will you let your wife suffer the same fate, or will you keep her safe?
The answer would always be to keep her safe.
“Nothing?” Vasilisa pressed, lifting her gun higher. The safety was off. It’d make one hell of a hole in my chest if she fired it.
“Vasya,” I said, my voice sticky and slow. “Finch is out there. He’s waiting, watching us. Our reception proved that, and I won’t take that risk again. Ever.”
“So we’re just going to stay here for the rest of our lives?” she asked, shaking her head.
“Yes!” I exploded, emotions erupting like a volcano. “If that’s what it takes to keep you safe,yes!”
Her eyes blew wide, her mouth opening in surprise. I yelled obscenities at myself in my head, but there was no fear in her body language like when Dad snapped at me.
“You were locked up in that houseyesterday morning,Vasya. I can’t forget that. I can’t move on so easily.”
She looked at me for a long moment, truly seeing me, and then she sighed, raking a hand through her blonde curls. “We can’t stay in the flat forever, Damien. But—okay, maybe the day after I was captured is too soon.”
I exhaled a hard breath, scrubbing my face with both hands as tears burned my eyes. Fuck,fuck.My hands shook. A voice in the back of my mind screamed at me to drop my hands, that Finch could break in and steal her when I wasn’t looking.
Blood rushed in my ears when careful hands wrapped around my wrists, tugging my hands away from my face and—winding my arms around her back. My chest caved in when Vasilisa rested her head over my heart, squeezing me in her arms.
“Don’t ever lie to me again,” she warned, steel in her voice but only care in her eyes. “I mean it, Damien.”
I swallowed. “I won’t. I promise.”
I never broke a promise. But not lying made keeping her safe difficult. If I’d entrusted her safety to anyone except myself at the reception, they’d deserve to be dead. Like Lionel. And if she asked, I’d have to tell her the truth. I would have killed them, because failure had consequences when it came to my wife’s safety.
She squeezed my waist and I looked down to find her eyes on me. “We’re okay, Damien. No one can get to us here.”
“You were right behind me, Vasya,” I replied, curling my hands into fists at her back to stop them trembling. “You wereright fucking behind me. You were supposed to be safe, and then I turned around and you were gone.”
Her chest rose and fell with a sigh, her hand moulding to my cheek. “I’m guessing this is why you keep following me everywhere.”
I swallowed, shame hot in my belly. “I can’t take the risk they’ll get you again. I know I’m clingy and suffocating, and I’m so sorry, I really truly am, but I can’t stop, Vasya. This is the only way to keep you safe.”
“I have a gun, and lots of new bullets, and I’m happy to use both,” she replied, giving me a squeeze before she peeled away from me.
Her absence hit me like a physical slap, and I swallowed, trying to shove down the blistering panic.
“Come sit down,” Vasya said, her voice soft but with an emotion I couldn’t decipher. Frustration, most likely. I knew I wasn’t an easy man to live with right now. Or maybe it was regret for marrying me. “Damien,” she repeated, holding out a hand.
I checked the door was still locked and sat where she indicated on the sofa, confused when she put my tablet in my hands and bent to kiss the top of my head. “Watch the feeds. There’s no one else here but us, and there’s no one getting into the building without you knowing. Which you already know; your panic’s just not letting you listen to logic, like mine wouldn’t when I first got here.”
The fact she was comparing me to when I first took her out of that ballroom meant I was in one hell of a state. I opened the app, cycling through the car park and communal areas footage, and the band cinched around my chest loosened the slightest amount.
“I’m making you chamomile tea,” she told me, leaving no room for argument, and leant over my shoulder to tap the screen. When I saw she’d opened a new feed so I could seethe kitchen, despite it being right behind me, I wanted to cry. I should get down on my knees and beg for forgiveness.
“Vasya,” I said, ignoring the croak of my voice, turning to catch her eye when she moved around the sofa, keeping her hand connected with my shoulder. “I’m sorry for lying. You’re right, I should have asked you to stay home. I won’t make that mistake again.”
I walked a very thin, dangerous line between saving my wife and saving my marriage, and while I’d always had ironclad control, balance had never been my strength.
CHAPTER 18
VASILISA
It was painful to watch Damien pretend everything was okay, that he wasn’t holding himself together with duct tape and a few well-placed stitches. The next Sunday, he laughed in all the right places, threw in a joke of his own, and smiled as if he didn’t wake up at least three times every night. As if he didn’t obsessively watch the security feeds every waking hour, so paranoid that I struggled to soothe him.
We’d compromised on a Marshall family dinner at our home, where Damien knew we were safe. I expected the trauma to lose its grip the more time passed, but it was eating away at him, reducing my husband to jumpy, gasping panic. It was getting worse every day. He had to be touching me twenty-four-seven, which was fine by me, but it was the fear I saw in the whites of his eyes when we separated that unsettled me.
