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I whisper sweet nothings in Russian, things she won’t understand, and I’m glad she doesn’t. They border on the dangerous edge of devotion I can’t risk her knowing.
When I push myself into her, she arches her back and holds onto me with utter trust. We stay like that, holding one another, and chase our release as one.I wake the next morning with her still asleep beside me, curled up and blissfully unaware of the phone that buzzes on the bedside table. She doesn’t even stir. I smile at the soft, damp tendrils of hair that curl around the nape of her neck when I answer the phone. No one calls me this early, not after a special night like I had, so I know it must be important.
“Dem.” It’s Filip.
I gently roll out of bed, careful not to wake my sleeping bride, and walk out of the room.
“What is it?” I snap, still half asleep. “This better be fucking important.”
“It is.” I hear Maksym cursing in the background, and I frown.
“We found out who she called,” Filip says. “And before you do another thing, you need to know.”
I freeze, the air in my lungs suspended. I say nothing, waiting for what I know I don’t want to hear.
“It’s a man by the name of Glen Gustev. Lives in a little hovel outside of Moscow.”
I curse, clenching the phone in my hand.
“There’s more, Demyan. We have pictures of him and her. Recent ones. The two of them together. I’m sending you a picture now.”
I look at my phone when the picture comes in. Calina… my beautiful, beautiful Calina… holding onto the arm of another.
I turn to stare at the empty doorway. At the sleeping form of the woman who betrayed me.
My wife, who belongs to another.Chapter 16I’m dozing in the most peaceful sleep I’ve had since I’ve come here, blissfully warm after the sweetest, most tender night I’ve had with Demyan yet. I roll over, reaching for him, and feel just warm sheets beside me. Opening my eyes, I look for him in the dimly-lit room but don’t see him. I blink in surprise when he stalks into the room.
I sit up in bed, alarmed, and instinctively pull the bedsheets around my body, because the man who enters is not the gentle lover of the night before. Demyan’s eyes flash, his lips pulled into a thin, furious line. His cheeks flame red and his nostrils flare.
“What?” I manage to say, just before he reaches me and yanks me out of bed by the hair. I scream at the tug along my scalp, more alarmed than hurt, though. I can feel his restraint even as his tremulous grip drags me out of bed and toward the little cell-like room that lies forgotten.
“Demyan,” I plead, trotting to keep up with his angry, massive strides. But he says nothing. Instead, he leads me to the closet. I tremble, knowing what means of punishment he houses in that closet, but instead of a strap he retrieves a length of thick, gleaming chain. In silence, he snaps cuffs onto my wrists, attached to a collar at my neck, before he leads me by the cuffs to the large cage that sits unused in the corner of the room.
Is this some sort of game? Now that I’m his, does he intend to use me like his little plaything? But there is no lust in his eyes, no seduction in his touch. Nothing but unfettered rage.
My stomach twists in knots when I fruitlessly tug at the chain. “No!” I protest. “No, please, Demyan. Please, sir. Tell me what happened! Tell me what I did to deserve this!” My pleas choke into a sob as he kicks the door to the cage open and shoves me in, hands first. Cuffed, I can’t brace myself and clumsily fall on all fours atop a thin black cushion that covers the entire bottom of the cage. He clangs the door shut and I hear the ominous click of a lock. I turn to face him but it’s difficult, since there’s barely any room for me to move in here, and my movement’s restricted from lack of space and the cuffs. I have to crane my neck to look at him.
“Demyan,” I say, crying freely now. Tears stream down my cheeks while I plead inwardly. Where is my tender lover from the night before? Where is the man who’s fiercely protective of me? And what has caused this rage to boil inside him again?
“Please. What did I do? I was just sleeping. We had such a lovely night. I thought you…” But I can’t bring myself to say it.
I thought you really cared for me.
And then I know, as adrenaline courses through me and wrenches me out of a sleepy fog. He knows. He knows I made a call and he knows I’m not Calina. He knows this has all been a lie, that I’m not who I’ve said I am. He knows he married someone who bears a different name.
