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What the hell else was I, ever?He may be treating me like one, but I’ve never been a player. I’ve barely survived, and eventhat I’ve more done through a series of luck and fuck-ups. I don’t belong in his world, I never did.
But Marya…she does, and always has. And look at her, with her hands on him, with her lips on him; so confident he will have her, and I’m the fool for thinking he never would. I’m the fool for thinking him better.
And if all of this is true, if I’m right, Aleks has no intention whatsoever of letting me join him and his men on the hunt tonight. I’ll have no part in avenging myself and muting the threat to my son and my family and all of our futures. I’ll lose what tenuous control I might have. And for Aleks’s part…how can I trust him now, to kill his enemy? He has tried, and failed. Konstantin has successfully gotten his hands on me twice. I could be dead now, two times over. And here I am, more by the skin of my own teeth than anything else.
Fine,I think, even as tears rush into my eyes, even as shame lights me like a cloak of fire, a second skin.Let me be the fool then. But let me do it without being made more of one.If Aleks isn’t trustworthy, I won’t be the girl who gives him my trust. He can have Marya, his perfect Russian match; she wants me dead and out of the way, just like everyone else.
I turn, as if the sight of them together, twisting in the shadows, doesn’t scorn me as much as any blow from Konstantin or his men; like it doesn’t make me feel like I’m bleeding as much as every beating I’ve endured up until now. I must be cold now, like Aleks is. For my sake, for the sake of my son. I have to be stronger now than I ever have been.
Not even love can get between me, and the man I want dead.
Chapter Twenty
Aleks
She tastes expensive; I can’t quite place it. Her perfume, or the potions she uses on her skin at night, or the makeup she swipes on so deftly, like a movie star. She also tastes fake, like there’s nothing real to her, no meat or soul or musk. Like she’s a prop.
She might as well be.
I give her a moment to save herself, but she’s greedy, and she presses up against me further, harder, her mouth opening against mine—and a wave of revulsion comes crashing through me. Rage, too, second but an even harder aftershock. For a second, I see red. Next thing I know, Marya’s neck is in my grip. I’m turning on one heel and slamming her, none too gently against the wall.
She gasps, makes a wheezy little gagging sound, her hands flying up to grip mine. My cigarette has dropped to the floor and its ashes spill, a tumble of bright cinders in the dark.
I lean in very close, Marya’s eyes wide, the whites of them all visible, like those of a startled animal. I bring my lips to her ear. “That is mywife,” I growl. “She is mine. And she is far, far from dead yet. You, on the other hand? You are doing quite the dance with the fucking devil, Marya.”
“You don’t love her,” she says with strain, her face reddening. “This is all a little game—”
“You know nothing of love. You know nothing of her.” Heat blazes behind my ribs like a captured star. “Here is what you know: you are going back to Russia. If not of your own free will, Marya, then with your brain spilled all over that pretty little leather jacket of yours, hm?”
Her eyes go round with terror. Even though it’s clear she thinks the opposite, she declares, voice trembling in Russian, “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh, but I would.” I tighten my grip on her neck, and she squeaks, squirming uselessly against the weight of my grip. “And it would be so terribly, terribly easy for you to take a wet turn too sharp—these things happen all the time. All these winding country roads. All this rain. It’s been getting colder every day, soon they’ll be slick with ice—and you never were much of a skilled driver.”
Her eyes narrow to slits, almost as though in annoyance.This woman.Even with her life clearly on the line, her ego yet lives and breathes. But to her credit she says nothing.
I press my hand harder against her neck, crushing her into the wall. “No one would second guess a thing,” I say, my voice low. “Or if they suspected me, no one would dare make a move against me, would they? Once I’ve killed Konstantin, I’ll be all the more feared, here and back in Russia, and your little name will have disappeared in the chaos. I don’t give a damn what your family wants or mine, Marya. I have made my decision.”
“She will die,” snarls Marya, and I admit I’m impressed she’s still got it in her to fight me. I know better than to think it’s pluck or even stubbornness—it’s only desperation. A last attempt to get claws into my flesh. “She isn’t one of us, she never will be. She will die, or her little boy will die, and that will kill her too. And it will all have been your fault, and if you’re stupid enough, Aleks, to truly love her—well, then it’s all liable to kill you too.”
I narrow my eyes, giving her more of a reaction than I mean to. But slowly the fight seems to wither out of her. She drops her arms limply to her sides and hangs her head. “Go back to Russia,” I say lowly. “Tonight. Or I’ll send you back myself. In a body bag.”
When I release her, she stumbles slightly. We stand there in the dark, the smell of smoke plaguing the air. Finally, she drags herself off the wall and grabs her bike helmet. It’s not until she reaches the doorway that she pauses, before speaking again.
“She’s brave,” says Marya without turning, her back to me. “Braver than the usual type, because she hasn’t learned how to fight dirty yet. I trust you see what a liability that makes her, to you, to all of you, but to herself most of all. She’s going to get herself killed, Aleks, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
And with that, she pulls on her helmet, and disappears through the front door, out into the rain.
***
It’s time.
Or it soon will be. I shouldn’t, but I’m steeling my nerves in the kitchen with a glass of whiskey. Darkness has fallen, and I haven’t had the focus or the will yet to tell Kat that she is indeed, not coming with us tonight. She’d be mad to believe that I’d let her get anywhere near Konstantin after last night. Besides, I don’t trust myself to fight with her there; not the way that I need to.
Yet…there is a chance this is goodbye. I don’t care to be a pessimist, and I’ve never had much reason at all to fear for my own death; death is death, it’s a black vault, it leaves no room for grief or fear. But I suppose that’s only because I’ve never had something—or someone—to leave behind.
As much as I’d like to think otherwise, that is different now. Kat is…special, to me. A pain in the ass, and a complication and a liability and a target, sure—but special all the same. She is my wife, by law, now. I say it’s all for her sake, and for my own, politically. But I’m not stubborn enough to keep up that lie now, to myself, in private.
I love her.
