“Hey.” Inna’s voice still carried the warmth from downstairs. I didn’t turn. Her footsteps moved further into the room. “I still can’t believe it. Romeo, I mean, Roman, is your actual brother?”
I turned specifically to see how bright her face was when she said his name like that. It was exactly as bright as I expected.
I took a slow sip and let her talk because she was already somewhere else entirely. Her fingers trailed along the spines of books as she laughed and talked about Roman the way people talk about memories they keep in good condition. She mentioned her mother’s café, how Roman became a regular, the cap he always wore, and a few small, stupid details.
She has never looked that happy while with me in a normal conversation.
“When you look closely, you two actually look alike.” She looked at me. “He’s your younger brother, right? What about your other brother? Does he look more like Romeo or more like—”
The glass left my hand before she finished the sentence. It hit the wall, and the shattering sound echoed across the room. I stood with my fist clenched at my side and my jaw set as I looked at her.
She looked between the mess and me. “Dmitri?”
“Did you two fuck?” I moved toward her and began rolling up my sleeves because my hands needed something to do, or I would hit the wall.
Her mouth opened. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“He was just a friend,” she said, the words coming out carefully. “I won’t do this. I’m leaving.” She turned, but I crossed the distance and pressed her against the shelf, my hand flat against the wood beside her. “Just let me go.”
“Do you like him?”
“Dmitri—”
“Do you fucking like him?” The words came out more sharply. “Because you can walk back downstairs and tell him exactly that, since apparently that’s where your face works properly.”
She stared at me with disgust in her eyes. “I think you’re just angry.”
I pulled her off the shelf and turned her, pressing her forward against it. I gripped both her wrists behind her back at the base of her spine. A book came off the shelf above and hit the floor, and neither of us moved.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was tight. “You want to hurt me because I talked to your brother?”
“Should I hurt you?” My lips pressed against her ear. “Did you do this so I would hurt you?”
“Do what? I only talked to him. That’s all I did.” She pulled against my grip. “Let go of my hands. Let go.”
“Are you scared of me?” The words came from somewhere I wasn’t managing carefully. “Because I can hurt you? Because he makes you comfortable in ways I don’t, is that it?”
“He is just a friend,” she gritted, her jaw tight.
“And I’m your fucking husband!” The grip on her wrists tightened, and she hissed through her teeth. “I’m the one you smile at. You are mine, Inna. You’re fucking mine.”
Her body shifted closer to the shelf, and I followed, pressing my chest against her back, caging her there.
“You’re hurting me,” she said with no performance in it.
I closed my eyes and let reality take control. Inna was nobody. She was a fake wife I pulled off the street because she owed me money, a temporary inconvenience I dressed well and housed in my mansion. She wasn’t anything I needed to account for. I could walk out of this room, make one phone call, and have a woman in my bed within the hour. I could get someone who wouldn’t smile at my brother while I stood in the same room, invisible.
I opened my eyes and released her wrists.
She eased slowly and turned to face me, flexing her hands at her sides. I kept my arm braced on the shelf above her head and didn’t move. She was between me and the wood, and she wasn’t leaving.
She needed to leave.
“Get out,” I said, jaw locked. She lifted her eyes to mine. “Get the fuck out.” The words came out with enough force. She nodded once and slid out of me.
My grip on the shelf tightened. The voices in my head ran in two directions simultaneously. One side recited the list of reasons she was nothing; the other side dismantled it as quickly as it had been built.
