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Suddenly, the strong, stoic Kat I’ve known this whole time vanishes. She collapses in on herself, and I see the exact moment that she decides it’s too much; I see the exact moment that she surrenders. She lets her head fall into her hands, shoulders curling, and begins to sob.
Don’t make this harder than it has to be,I think to myself, as my instincts begin to awaken. The warmer ones, the softer, deeper ones, that only seem to live in me when I’m near her…what the hell is it about her, about Kat, that changes me? If I thought it was a fluke that one night, all those years ago, I was wrong. Clearly, I was wrong. Because in her presence, even now, against all reason, I cannot help but soften.Don’t complicate things, my mind implores me.Be hard. Be strong. Put on your mask. Make your heart of steel.
But I can’t. No—I won’t. I don’t want to. What I want is to give this girl, this brilliant, beautiful, strong, courageous girl, one moment’s comfort and peace. I rise, and lift the blanket, and slide into bed beside her. She doesn’t even question it. I imagine she is simply too tired, too exhausted and beaten down, to question it.
Instead, like she’s done it a thousand times, she turns into me, her head still in her hands, and buries herself against my chest. Intuitively, I put my arms around her and pull her close, holding her. She’s shaking, practically vibrating, sobs coursing through her violently.
“I can’t do this,” she says, through harsh gasps, through her tears. “I can’t live like this, Aleks. I had no idea it would be this hard. I’m so stupid—I had no idea what a monster he is, what he’s capable of. This is worse than killing me.”
“It’s meant to be,” I remind her softly, speaking into her hair. I cradle her against me, stroking her back. “And you’re not stupid, Kat. You’re living a normal life. This man is not normal. He and I don’t come from a normal world. You’re being punished simply because I care for you. And I may not seem it…but I am sorrier for that than anything else I have ever done.”
Sobbing softly, she sits up, looking at me with big, luminous, terrified eyes. “Do you mean that?”
“Why would I lie to you?”
“But you…you don’t care for me,” she protests, but her face tells me she doesn’t believe this. She’s conflicted.Hell. So am I.“You can’t. And anyway, even if you did, it would be completelymeaningless. We can’t be together. We can never be together. Our worlds are too different, and…”
I press a finger to her lips. “I know. I know. It’s OK.”
“I thought they were going to kill me,” she whispers, her voice so thin it’s barely audible. “I really thought they were going to just give in and beat me to death, right there.”
“I know.” And they could have, but I don’t say this part. Because if I do, I think I might lose what tenuous handle I have on my rage right now—and that wouldn’t benefit anyone. Especially not Kat. She needs me safe for her right now; grounded. “But you’re alive, Kat,” I remind her softly, as softly as I can. “And you’re going to stay that way, do you hear me? I have you now. You’re safe. And Konstantin is never going to get his hands on you again.”
She looks at me, almost like she believes me.
Chapter Fifteen
Kat
He falls asleep beside me. I shouldn’t like that as much as I do. But he looks so peaceful when he sleeps; like a different man entirely, so much less haunted. Less plagued. I can almost imagine him in a different life. One where there’s no crime at all, and no mafia and no killing and death, no history of it, no blood or pressure or legacy.
Legacy.I watch him sleep, and envy the peace he has in this moment. It eludes me. My legacy is his legacy; our son. And he doesn’t know. Has no idea. When he spoke of marriage, he was so willing to give that up. Maybe because a marriage to me would be one in name only, a façade designed to protect me from his enemies.
Maybe he was serious. Maybe to keep me safe, he would be willing to give up a future in which he has a real wife, and real children, and a real legacy.
But if he had me…is there a way, a possibility, that he could have both, after all?
I shake my head, shake myself. I’m exhausted, but I’m finding it difficult to sleep. Usually when I’m like this, tossing and turning late into the night, I’ll go downstairs and rest in the living room, read a good book or get ahead on work; sometimes I’ll go out and walk the estate, through the dark woods. There’s a river back there. In the dark, at night, it feels treacherous and magical, like a wishing well from a fairy tale.
But those little escapes have been taken from me. In their place, now, is only fear. Instead, I go into the ensuite bathroom. The pain medication that Aleks’ medic gave me hasn’t quite worn off yet, and the pain is manageable, though the wooziereffects have worn off. When I get into the bathroom and see my reflection, I gasp.
My face is bruised, swollen. There are a pair of little gashes on my cheekbone, one of them knitted together tightly with stitches.From the ring, I think—the one the big man was wearing when he backhanded me. A chill of fear pulses through me at the memory. Something in me feels tainted by it now. By everything. All of this.
“Are you alright?” He shuffles his feet moving into the doorway. I know he does it to warn me, so I won’t be startled when he speaks. Our eyes meet in the mirror. “It’s going to get worse, you know, before it gets better.”
I nod. “I know. It’s pretty hard to look at, though.”
His face, dark, stormy, says:It hurts for me, too.I can only imagine. In no world is it not his fault that this happened. All of this. To me, and to us.But he’s still fighting to fix it. To resolve things and make it all right.
What if that means marriage, in the end?
I notice something—a bandage showing beneath the sleeve of his shirt. When I go to him and pull it up, I find a dense wrap of gauze there, held in place by expertly applied medical tape. When I touch him, to my surprise, he grimaces. Not much could hurt Aleks enough to make him show it.
I look at him. “What happened?”
He says nothing, only studies me, and the undeniable concern on my face. His hand rises and he strokes my face, gently, tenderly, as if I was going to shatter against his warm touch. I don’t feel any pain as he does it, like his touch isn’t real, like it’s that of a ghost.
“Aleks,” I say softly, my voice edging on pleading. “I’ll just worry. Tell me what happened.”
