AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My first call was to Levin back in New York. The information he’d given me had only served to intensify my certainty that Caterina had been taken rather than running away. He’d told me that there was more unrest among the men, that Alexei had been insubordinate, and that he’d look a little more deeply into that. The threatening tone in his voice had told me that Alexei was in for an—uncomfortable conversation.
A day and a half later, he was on a jet to Moscow to join me here, leaving Mikhail in charge to keep an eye on Alexei and the burgeoning rebellion at home. Deep down, I knew it would be best to leave Levin there to oversee things, but I also need my second in command here with me, helping me to find my wife.
Moscow is a minefield for me, full of those who envy what my family built for ourselves in America and those who simply think that I don’t deserve all I have. My father and his father weren’t from any important family. The fact that the Andreyev name has risen so high is a bitter pill for many still here to swallow, and there’s no shortage of those who would like to see me brought down.
I suspect that one of them, or more, might have gotten to Alexei, whispered poison in his ear, and planted the seeds of mutiny there. And if that’s the case, the place Ishouldbe right now is Manhattan, purging the infection out of my organization before it can take hold and protecting my family.
But Caterina is here, abducted and held somewhere. Even as my hand hovered over the phone to call and tell the jet to get ready to take me back to New York, I knew I couldn’t abandon her.
Now I’m in the cold of Northern Russia, a place where the temperatures hover low even in May, bundled up and camping as we search for her. I feel torn in two directions, between my duty to my wife and my duty to my responsibilities back home, and it’s made me irritable and difficult. Levin brought a handful of men with him to aid in the search. They’re keeping a bit of a distance from me as we set up camp, a few of them cleaning weapons as they talk quietly among themselves.
“You think it was Igor?” I ask, keeping my voice low as I sit by the fire. “He’s had his eye on my stake in the business for a while.”
“I think it’s likely. He’s the other supplier, and you’re in direct competition with him—but you do better even though he has the ear of some of the most influential men in Moscow. If he had the opportunity to bring you down from the inside—”
“You suspect Alexei, too.” It’s not a question. My voice is flat and certain. I know Levin has the same concerns that I do.
“I do,” Levin confirms, looking into the fire. “He’s been even stranger since you were gone, more withdrawn and restless. I think something is going on. I trust him less than I did before, and that was already eroding.”
“There’ll be hell to pay when I get back, if he’s responsible for doing this to Caterina. And if she’s not alive if we find her—”
“When,” Levin says sharply, but he still doesn’t look at me. “We’ll find her, Viktor. This won’t be a repeat of Vera.”
“I hope not.”
I have faith in Levin’s abilities to help me track her, and I believe that we’ll find her—or at least the ones responsible—eventually. I have less faith in what condition she’ll be in once we get there. It’s already been three days, and we’re a decent bit away from Moscow now into the woods. If the trail goes cold, we might not find her in time.
And there are worse things than finding her dead.
The thought lingers with me as I lay down to try to sleep, which eludes me. It’s not the discomfort of being out in the woods—for all the luxuries I’ve acquired for myself, I’m no stranger to roughing it when need be. There’s even a certain peace to being out in the cold night, the trees close and thick around me, and the faint noises of wildlife in the distance. But in the dark, the memories of Vera come crowding back in, her pale, lifeless face and the blood on her wrists, the way my heart had twisted and shattered when I’d seen the absolute, brutal finality of it.
I’d sworn to myself that I’d never feel anything again like what I felt for her, that I’d never open my heart to someone again only to know that we’d disappoint each other in the end. But as I lie there looking up at the ceiling of my tent, the darkness close and cold around me, I can’t deny that there’s a part of me that wants to do exactly that with Caterina.
And in the end, I’ll disappoint her too. I can’t be anything other than what I am—I’ve only ever been this. Vera had wanted me to be something different, and when I couldn’t, it had destroyed her. Now I’m very afraid that the life I lead will claim another woman that I’ve come to care for and that I won’t be able to stop it. Or that she won’t be dead, but a shell of the woman I married instead.
I’m not sure which would be worse, honestly.
It’s her that I finally dream about when I do fall asleep. I dream of her on the balcony outside our hotel room on our wedding night, the breeze ruffling the heavy satin of her skirt, her fingers clenched around the railing. I see her leaning forward the way I had when I walked out of the bathroom, feeling the clenching fear in my stomach again that she might have been thinking of throwing herself off.
Marriage to me can’t be worse than death, can it?
Vera had proved that wasn’t the case.
In the dream, though, Caterina hears my voice the way she had on our wedding night and turns away from the railing, her hair blowing loosely around her shoulders as she faces me. This time, there’s a smile on her face as she looks at me, her eyes soft instead of cold and blank the way they had really been that night.
Her lips part and I know she wants to come to me. I can feel the pulse of desire that passes through me at the look on her face, and I take a breath, setting the drink in my hand aside as I take a step towards her, suddenly very aware of the bed to my left and what I intend to do to her in it in just a few moments—
And then Alexei appears next to her, his hand on her arm, grabbing her roughly. Before I can speak or move or even breathe, he hauls her over the side of the railing, shoving her hard as he throws her over to the concrete all the way down.
I scream, a sound that could be her name or his or something else altogether, and then I jolt awake.
I sit up, gasping, a cold sweat clinging to my forehead and palms. The sound of Caterina’s shriek in the dream is still ringing in my ears, the sight of Alexei throwing her off of the balcony so vivid and real that it’s almost hard to believe that it was a dream at all. My heart is pounding, and I have to take several deep, full breaths as I remember where I am, that none of it was real.
Vera is gone. I can’t change that. I can’t fix the mistakes I made with her. But there’s still a chance that I can save Caterina.
Part of me has wanted to abandon the search these past twenty-four hours, to accept that she’s gone and go back home to my children. I could root out the dissent in my organization, purge it clean and then make sure that Anika and Yelena are safe, the two people in the world who need me the most.
But every time I’ve come close to saying it aloud, something has stopped me.
