Page 47 of The Marriage

Demyan towered over her, placing both his hands on her silky soft hair. Then, he kissed the top of his wife’s head.

“You look like you’ve got some good news,” she said.

Demyan knew she would figure it out. Claire could always reach inside his mind to find what he was thinking—his eyes were her windows to his soul.

“I don’t know what I’ve got yet, if it’s anything.”

“Care to share?”

“The remains they found in the burnt down Yazov mansion—well, it isn’t Maxim.”

Claire pressed the tips of her fingers to her lips. “Then who was it? Where’s Maxim?”

She reached for her husband’s wrists, clinging to him because, no doubt, Claire knew all at once those were the same questions Demyan had. Since they met—Claire made him feel like he was the one with all the answers to her questions.

The truth was that she saved him.

“Leonid is missing. Nobody’s seen him since the fire. Dima is in New York and demanding to see me, but he’s here without his father. There has to be a good reason for that.”

“Leonid is dead?” Claire asked.

Demyan remained silent because this was just a theory without actual proof.

But it was a good one.

TEN

Days went by without any difference in the way Karine woke up feeling. In unseen agony from heartbreak, but visibly numb to anyone who looked her in the face.

She’d been helplessly trapped the very moment when Roman first brought her to this place. The same thought invaded her head every morning she cracked open her eyes—that he had abandoned her.

Why hadn’t he taken her with him?

What had she done to deserve this?

One morning, she woke up in the same bed, with the same sheets, and accidentally looked at her hand to see the diamond ring he had given her. The one she had picked out that day at the jewelry store with that small diamond that sat daintily on her finger but couldn’t be missed all the same.

Impulsively, she smiled at the memory of that day because it was a beautiful one.

In those ignorant seconds of happiness, she had dared to think that was how the rest of their married life together would be.

He made her feel like every blushing, blissed bride should on their honeymoon, gifting her with an experience she never thought she would have, and he did it effortlessly. Like he didn’t even have to think about it. He just ... did.

Karine had thought that they somehow just brought out the best in each other—together.

Ever since she could remember, she expected the worst from Dima, honestly. To be in a marriage full of hate and rage, subjugation and abuse.

But now she was married to Roman.

Even though she was trapped in this institution, that didn’t change what was. Her marriage to Roman was still very much real. It didn’t change that, for a moment, he had made her feel that unimaginable happiness, and she didn’t think it was entirely a lie.

Not all of it ...

It couldn’t be.

The ring reminded Karine of the necklace. One of the few items Sylvia and a male nurse had provided with Karine the day after her admission because, as they explained it, the chain was too delicate for her to use as a weapon. Whether against herself or otherwise. They had nearly taken her wedding ring, convinced she could use it as a sharp object to self-harm but because she didn’t have a history and threatened to throw an unholy fit, she kept the ring.

For now, the therapist warned.