Page 191 of Marrying the Savage

“Why did you marry Elena?” she asks. The question is quiet, but direct.

I expected it eventually. Not now.

Still, she deserves the truth.

“We were young,” I say.

“How young?”

“I was twenty-two. She was nineteen.”

Sofia blinks. “That young?”

“Yes.”

I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling for a moment, not because I can’t look at Sofia, but because Elena’s story has too many pieces and none of them fit well in my mouth.

“Our families wanted the marriage. At first, I didn’t fight it. Elena was beautiful, intelligent, careful. She had been raised to be useful to powerful men, and I was arrogant enough to think I could give her a better life because I wanted to.”

Sofia stays quiet.

“Elena was ill even before we married,” I continue. “But there were fevers, pain, weakness, moods that changed without warning, doctors who gave one answer and then another. Her family hid most of it because they wanted the marriage done.”

Sofia’s fingers move lightly over my chest. Not to distract me. To remind me she is listening.

“She hated being weak,” I say. “She hated doctors. She hated being watched. Some days she was bright and sharp and cruel enough to make a room bleed without raising her voice. Other days she would not leave bed. There were months when I thought she was improving, then one bad week would undo everything.”

“That sounds lonely,” Sofia says.

“For her, yes.”

“For you too.”

I look at her. She doesn’t look away.

“It was,” I admit. “We were married on paper, in public, in photographs. In private, it became more complicated. Some years were decent. Some were not. After the fire, after my father and brother died and I became Pakhan, everything changed. I had no time, and she needed more than I could give. I sent doctors. Nurses. Guards. I told myself protection was the same thing as presence.”

Sofia’s hand stills. I know she hears the similarity.

So do I.

“She fell from the terrace,” I say.

Her breath catches.

“I was right here in the house when it happened. But I didn’t even know she fell until Mikhail told me.”

Sofia pushes herself up on one elbow, the sheet slipping lower on her chest. “Damir.”

“I should have been there.”

“You don’t know that you could have stopped it.”

“I was her husband.”

“That doesn’t make you God.”

My mouth tightens.