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21
CATERINA
While Viktor cleans Alexei’s blood off of himself in the bathroom, I go to find the girls, along with Sofia and Luca. I step inside to see Sofia sleeping in one bed, Anika and Yelena curled up together in the other, and I glance at Luca.
“It’s been a while,” he says quietly, his voice low so as not to wake them. “Is it over?”
I nod. “He’s dead,” I say flatly. And then, because I know Luca will want to know, “It was slow.”
“Good.” Luca turns to look at Sofia. “She hasn’t woken up since she fainted. Is she—did he—hurt her, at all?”
I shake my head. “Not really. He wasn’t gentle with her, exactly. But he didn’t touch her like that, or beat her. He didn’t want her to accidentally lose the baby, I think. There was a couple that wanted her because they couldn’t have children. I think he was keeping that in mind.”
Luca’s jaw tightens. “They should be glad, for their sake, that they escaped before I could get my hands on them.”
“She’ll be alright,” I reassure him. “Traumatized for a while, probably. She’ll have nightmares, if my experience is anything to go by. But it will get better in time.”
“And you?” Luca looks at me sympathetically. “You’ve been through even more.”
I’m quiet for a moment, thinking about it. There’s things that have happened in the last weeks that make them seem as if they’ve been months, abuse and violence spanning things I would have never thought I would endure or see. I’ve killed a man who laid his hands on me, and tonight I watched as Viktor carved another to pieces, taking out his vengeance and mine on him in inches.
“I’m alive,” I say simply. “And he isn’t.”
“Is that enough?” Luca asks, very quietly.
I shrug, looking up at him with a grim half-smile. “It’s going to have to be.”
The door opens and Viktor walks in, scrubbed as clean of Alexei’s blood as he can be. The moment he steps in, shutting the door behind him, Anika starts to stir, as if she knows he’s there.
He crosses the room in two strides, sitting down on the side of the bed as Anika sits up slowly, rubbing her eyes as she peers at him in the dim light from the one lamp in the room.
“Daddy?” she says in a small, hesitant voice, blinking up at him.
For the first time since I’ve known him, I see Viktor break down.
He reaches out, crushing her to his chest as his shoulders start to shake, pressing his lips to her hair as he squeeze his eyes tightly shut. “I’m so sorry, baby,” he murmurs in a broken voice, tears clogging his throat. “I’m so sorry.”
“Daddy!” Yelena squeals it sleepily as she wakes up too, throwing herself at him. He reaches out with one broad arm, pulling her into his embrace too, and I feel tears rise sharply to my eyes as I watch Viktor hug his daughters as if he’ll never again let them go.
He holds them like that for a long time, both girls clinging to him as they cry together. Finally, Anika looks up at him, her small brow furrowed.
“Are we going home now, papa?”
Viktor nods, wiping his face with the back of one hand. “Yes,malinka,” he says, his voice low and thick with emotion. “I’m going to take you home.”
He looks up then, over at me, and meets my eyes from across the room.
“We’regoing to take you home,” Viktor says.
---
We take Luca’s plane back to Moscow, and instead of going to the loft, where my last memory is of being abducted, we go to a hotel instead. Not the one where I tried to run from Viktor, either, but another that’s equally as luxurious. Viktor asks for adjoining rooms for the girls and us. Sasha offers to stay with them in their room, so that they’re not alone, and Viktor accepts gratefully.
Anika and Yelena are beyond exhausted. Even after sleeping on the plane, they’re still out the instant that we tuck them into bed. “I’ll stay up for a little while,” Sasha says, once we’ve kissed the girls goodnight. “In case they wake up and need you. I’m not all that tired.”
From her face and the bags under her eyes I know that’s not true, but it’s not hard to guess as to why she might not want to sleep yet. We’ll all be having nightmares for a while, I’m certain of it.
But it’s over now, and they’ll fade in time. “Thank you,” I tell Sasha, and Viktor and I each kiss the girls once more on the forehead before we retreat through the adjoining door to our own room.
