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I turn my face away at that, trying to hide the sudden pang of grief. “That must make me nearly useless to you then, outside of the bargain you have with Luca.”
“What?” Viktor reaches for my hand, startling me. “Caterina, no. I—” he stops, his broad, rough palm encircling my smaller hand. It feels very fragile just then, in his grasp. “I’m not concerned with that right now,” he says finally. “I’m concerned with keeping you safe. With making sure my daughters are safe, and my household.”
That catches my attention. “What about Yelena and Anika?” I ask, hearing a thread of fear winding through my voice. “Are they okay? Has something happened?”
“There’s—difficulty back home,” Viktor says carefully. “I don’t tell you too much, Caterina, precisely because of what happened to you. I don’t want you to have information for anyone to pry out of you.”
That didn’t stop them from carving me up like a turkey,I think bitterly.Just because I didn’t have answers. It didn’t save me.But I don’t say it out loud. I think Viktor knows that as well as I do, and there’s no point in letting it hover in the air between us, thick with resentment.
“The girls may be in danger,” he says finally. “Luca is going to them. And what’s happening back in New York may be connected to your abduction. Levin has been—questioning the two men we found keeping you prisoner. I’ll take a more personal approach to it myself tomorrow. I’ll find out if that’s true.”
His gaze meets mine, and I find myself staring at him, trying to make sense of it all. My husband just bluntly told me of his intent to torture Andrei and Stepan, who likely have already received rough treatment at Levin’s hands, a man whose bad side I wouldn’t prefer to be on. I should be appalled—but I’m not. In fact, I don’t feel anything other than a faint satisfaction at the idea that they might feel some of the same pain and fear that they’d subjected me to.
What is happening to me?
I’ve never had to face the realities of the life I live so clearly before. I’d grown up sheltered, insulated from it all, a pampered mafia princess without any real understanding of the machinations in the shadows. I’d gotten a peek at that darkness when I was married to Franco and seen it all too clearly towards the end. I’d thought I’d been exposed to some of the worst of it. But now I’m seeing that I’d only scratched the surface.
I wonder what kind of woman this will turn me into in the end.
If I’ll ever heal completely, inside or out.
“You’ll have another day to rest,” Viktor says. “And then we’ll move to the next safe house. The doctor will come with us.”
I nod, unsure of what to say. Everything I’ve heard in the last few minutes seems to point towards Viktor not having had anything to do with my abduction. He seems furious about it, worried about whatever is happening back home, and concerned for me. But after everything that’s happened, I don’t know how to trust that.
My first husband was an abusive traitor. My father was a man different from the one I’d always believed him to be. Luca asked things of me that I’d never thought he would. Viktor has always been cold with me except in the bedroom, and now I’ve been destroyed, body and soul, by men who did it for nothing but their own pleasure.
I don’t know how to trust any longer. I don’t know who to believe, how to know for certain. I can think of reasons why Viktor might still have been behind it, how he could be manipulating me right now. I don’t know if that makes me paranoid or if I’ve finally come to my senses.
It’s exhausting. And all I want is to rewind to the moment Luca asked me to marry Viktor and tell him that I can’t. No matter the consequences. To stop shouldering the responsibilities of a life that I never asked to lead and take mine into my own hands.
To be free.
“Alright,” I say softly, looking away. “I’m not exactly in a position to do anything other than what you think is best.”
“Caterina—” Viktor hesitates. “Do you remember anything? Anything at all about the men who took you?”
I close my eyes, not wanting to remember. I can still feel the cold sting of that needle, if I let myself think about it for even a moment. But I know that Viktor needs this. That it might help catch the men who wanted me hurt, even dead, before they can do worse.
Before they can get to Viktor’s daughters.
“Not much,” I admit. “There were several of them. Most of them just looked like goons. But the one who drugged me was tall, wearing a black coat, with very light blond hair and blue eyes. He had a square jaw and looked—” I pause, trying to think of how to explain it. “He was dressed like he was someone important. But it wasn’t just that. There was—an air that he had.”
Viktor’s jaw tightens. “I have an idea of who it could have been. Thank you,” he adds, his hand tightening around mine. “I know you don’t want to remember these things. If I could—” he hesitates. “If I could take it away from you somehow, Caterina, I would. If I could make the memories go away.”
I nod, feeling a sudden lump of emotion well up in my throat. I don’t know what to do with this new, gentler Viktor. This man, who holds my hand and looks as if he’s worried for me, who may have stayed at my bedside and tended my wounds and bathed me. I still don’t know what was a dream and what wasn’t, but those two men—the one I knew and the one he seems to be now—don’t add up. And I don’t know which one to believe or what to trust.
“I won’t let anyone else harm you,” Viktor says, letting go of my hand and standing up. “I’ll extract all the information I can from those two men, and I’ll make sure that whoever is behind this is punished. They won’t get away with it, Caterina.”
I nod, still unable to speak from the lump in my throat. He can punish them all he wants, but it doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t take away the memories or the nightmares I had while trapped in the clutches of the fever, nightmares that I suspect will come back again and again. It won’t repair my body, give me back my looks, or take away the physical pain.
I’m not even sure it can heal the emotional pain.
“I should rest,” I say quietly, and I see his jaw tighten as if he wants to say something. But he simply nods, and then to my surprise, bends down to kiss me softly on the forehead.
“Rest well,” he says softly. And then he turns and leaves me there, staring after him as I clutch the blankets and wonder if I’m still caught in a fever dream, after all.
VIKTOR
