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“I won’t let anything happen to you,” I murmur, reaching up with one hand to stroke her damp hair away from her face when she’s stopped struggling long enough for me to feel certain she won’t flail in the tub again and hurt herself. “I’m here, Caterina. It’s me. You’re safe.”
She looks at me uncomprehendingly, as if she can’t imagine that. And maybe she can’t, with it all so fresh. Carefully, I touch her cheek, avoiding the bruise near her jaw. “No one will hurt you while I’m here,” I tell her quietly, wanting more than anything to help take the frightened look off of her face. “No one.”
Caterina’s eyes drop, her breathing slowing a fraction more. She turns her head away, and I can feel her retreating into herself, her body still tense under my hands.
I know I’ve never entirely had her trust, but I can see that for some reason I’ve lost what little I might have had, and I’m not sure why. It might have been when she saw the girls at the hangar, or maybe it goes deeper than that, but I thought we’d made progress.
I’m not sure where we, specifically, went wrong again. And I know now isn’t the time to try and figure it out.
I’m not even entirely sure where we go from here, besides my keeping her safe.
I don’t know what our marriage looks like, on the other side of this. But I know that it’s not going to end with me looking down at her pale, lifeless face, and wondering what I could have done differently.
Gently, I pick up the washcloth that I’d dropped in the water when Caterina started to panic and run it slowly over her skin. I’m not even bathing her at this point so much as soothing her, squeezing the cloth so that the water runs over her flushed skin in warm rivulets. She shivers, and I know she’s still feverish, her skin hot to the touch without the warmth of the water. It must feel cold to her, but the doctor had warned not to heat up the bath too much. He’d cautioned against even letting her soak in it too long, worried about the wounds that had needed stitches, but her temperature also needs to come down.
I’ve never been in a position to care for anyone like this, not even my children. Anika and Yelena have been sick in the past, of course, but Vera cared for them when she was alive, and then Olga afterward. As attentive of a father as I’ve tried to be, the role of caregiver isn’t one I was raised to inhabit. It’s strange to be doing it now.
But Caterina has no one else.
“Lay back,” I tell her gently, pressing back on her shoulder so that she’s leaning back in the tub. It’s not large—this cabin was built to be functional, not luxurious. It’s a world away from my home back in New York, but at least here, we’re as safe as possible.
She obeys, her head tilting back, and I run the cloth down between her breasts, being excruciatingly careful. She lets out a small sigh as I touch her, and when I glance up, I see that the skin beneath her eyes is damp.
There’s no way to tell if it’s water or tears, but I think I can guess which. And although she won’t look at me, I reach up gently, rubbing my thumb over her cheekbone to wipe away the moisture.
“I’ll never hurt you,” I tell her, keeping my voice as low and soothing as I can make it. I don’t know if that’s a lie or not—the afternoon that I bent her over her bed and applied my belt to her ass is still fresh in my memory and likely hers—but as far as I’m concerned, I hadn’thurther. I’d punished her, made her aware of the consequences of a choice she’d made, laid out the rules for our future together. But I hadn’t hurt her egregiously. I can’t lie and say that I hadn’t taken some—or a great deal—of pleasure in seeing her gorgeous pale ass turn red under the lash of my belt, but I hadn’t harmed her. I’d been careful not to do exactly that.
As for the rest of what we’d done together—she’d enjoyed that. She’d even been aroused by the spanking, as much as I know, she’d never admit it.
This is different. Whattheydid to her is different. And as I gently run the cloth over her body, I have to fight back that primal, angry urge to go out and copy the same marks that those animals left on her on their own flesh. They deserve every ounce of pain I can mete out to them and more.
They won’t make it out of this in one piece. I can guarantee that.
She’s still too warm when I lift her out of the bath and half-asleep again. I dry her off carefully and carry her back to the bed, laying her naked on the clean sheets. The doctor gave me an ointment to put on the shallowest of the wounds, to hopefully help keep them from scarring and help with the infection. I gently apply it bit by bit as she lays there, her breathing soft and shallow again as she slips back into sleep.
The fever has lasted too long, I know that. She was thin before, but I can see her almost wasting away in front of me, and I know that if this goes on too much longer, I’ll lose her.
I’m not sure if I’d actually follow through on my threat to the good doctor if Caterina dies. I can guarantee that the men outside will suffer. And I’ll enjoy every second of it.
When her bandages are changed, she’s fast asleep and there’s nothing else I can do. I pull the blanket back over her, looking at her delicate face. It’s the only part of her that looks almost the same, only slightly bruised with the split and swollen lip that’s slowly healing. Her face reminds me that Caterina is still in the battered body lying there and that there’s a chance she’ll come back to me.
That they didn’t destroy her entirely.
“Viktor.” Levin’s voice comes from outside the door, and I jerk back from where my hand is resting on the blanket, as if I feel guilty for touching my wife, looking at her with affection. I take a step back, my jaw tensing as I turn towards the door. I can’t forget about my other responsibilities, simply because of her. I can’t lose sight of the bigger picture.
Sometimes, I think I’m very much in danger of doing that.
The expression on Levin’s face when I step out into the hall outside of Caterina’s room is far grimmer than what I’d hoped to see. “What happened?” I ask tightly, stepping away from the door and motioning for him to follow me down to another of the rooms, where we can talk privately.
“I got a call from Mikhail,” Levin says, his voice low and angry. “Alexei has staged a coup, back in New York. He’s killed several of the men who tried to stand up to him and nearly Mikhail as well. Mikhail said he’s injured but alive. He’s going to try to get back to the house and get the girls, Olga, and the others out of there before Alexei can get to them.”
Fuck.I clench my fists at the mention of my daughters, the building rage I’d felt earlier threatening to burn out of control. I’ve always considered myself a levelheaded man, without much of a temper.
But it’s been sorely tested lately.
“Call Luca,” I say sharply. “We have an accord, and that means that he should be ready to help defend my territory if need be. Beyond that, Alexei might strike at him. And Liam—”
“Alexei has already moved against the Irish,” Levin says quietly. “He invited a few of Liam’s men to the warehouse under the guise of you asking and shot them. Mikhail said that he plans to try to use the instability of the Irish right now after Conor’s death to take the Boston territory.”
