Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
FIONA
The drive is endless, though I don’t remember the streets I take or the lights I run. Everything outside the windshield blurs into gray streaks of rain and motion, and my fingers grip the wheel until the leather creaks beneath them.
Every mile closer to Aleksei’s building feels like another step toward detonating something that can’t be undone. By the time I reach the glass tower, my stomach is twisted in knots. I sign in at security and mindlessly ride up the elevator to the top floor.
When the doors open, I spot his secretary behind a sleek white desk, phone pressed to her ear.
She looks up, smile automatic. “Good afternoon. Do you have an—”
“I’m here to see Aleksei. I’m his wife.” My voice cuts through hers before she can finish. “Where is he?”
Her eyes widen. “Oh, Mrs. Marinova, of course. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Tell me where he is. I’ll let him know myself.”
The woman hesitates, glancing toward the corridor. “He’s in the conference room at the end of the hall, but he’s in a meeting. If you wait—”
“I won’t be waiting.”
I want the element of surprise.
My heels strike the floor in sharp, echoing beats as I move down the hallway. Each step seems to squeeze something tighter inside my chest, pressure building beneath my ribs. The contract burns against my palm, hot with betrayal.
When I reach the door, I don’t stop. I push it open. As soon as I strut in, the room falls with a heavy silence.
Two dozen men sit around a long black table, every head swiveled toward me, Aleksei’s brothers among them. When my gaze lands on Aleksei, his brows tug as he rises from the far end of the table.
“Fiona?” He advances, but something in my features holds him back. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
The sound of my name shatters me. A cry tears out of me before I can stop it, and every man in that room stiffens.
Aleksei doesn’t hesitate. “Everyone out. Now.”
Chairs scrape, and the men file out quickly. Konstantin is the only one remaining, his attention flicking between us.
“Whatever this is, it will be all right.”
He lays a hand on my shoulder, and I shake my head, swiping a tear away.
“No. It won’t.”
His gaze lingers on me for a beat. Then, with a firm nod, he’s gone, the door closing quietly in his wake.
Aleksei moves toward me, but I edge back.
“Don’t.”
“Fiona, what’s going on?”
My throat tightens so hard it hurts to breathe.
“I don’t even know what I expected from you.” I snicker. “Honesty? Maybe that was asking too much, considering who you are.”
He frowns, confusion flashing across his features.
“Do you really love me, Aleksei? Or was this just part of the game?” A harsh, shaky laugh slips out of me. “That was the point, wasn’t it? To hurt me? To see how far you could twist the knife before I broke?” I swipe at my face, angry at the tears. “Well, congratulations. You broke me.”
He takes another cautious step, his tone firm but edged with tension. “Fiona, what are you talking about?”
“This.” I throw the contract at his feet. “This is what I’m talking about.”
He glances down, and the blood drains from his face.
“Yeah. That’s right. I found it. The deal you made with my parents. The one where you bought me like one of your fucking cars.”
His mouth opens, then closes again. For once, he has no words.
“Don’t,” I warn when he reaches out. “Don’t touch me.”
He freezes, and the silence between us roars.
“I can’t believe I’ve been such an idiot,” I choke out. “Thinking we had something real. That we were healing. But we have nothing, Aleksei. Nothing! We never have.”
He shakes his head, eyes glassy. “That’s not true, Fiona, I swear I—”
“Don’t you dare say it. There’s never been anything real between us. And thanks to whoever’s been sending those cryptic messages, I finally see it. You and my parents, you’re the same. You don’t give a damn about me.”
The change in his face is instant. “Someone is sending you messages? Why haven’t you told me? Where is it? Show me.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I look away. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Of course it matters! Blyat! I love you, Fiona.”
“Love? You have some way of showing it.”
My fingers move to the chain around my neck, the one holding both my rings. I stare at the band on his hand, still there, gleaming under the harsh lights, and the pain inside me deepens until it’s unbearable.
“You know…” I whisper, tears roving down my face. “I actually did love you too. More than you’ll ever deserve.”
I unclasp the chain and set it on the edge of the table. The tiny clink echoes like a gunshot.
He’s on me in two strides, his hand buried in my hair as he presses me against the wall. His breath is ragged, his eyes wild.
“Did?” His voice is rough, broken glass scraping. “No. You do love me. You can’t just erase that. I won’t let you.”
I place a palm against his cheek.
“You’re right,” I whisper. “I can’t.”
For a moment, we just breathe each other’s air, the space between us trembling with everything unsaid before I lean forward and press a kiss to his lips. Soft. Fleeting. Final.
“It’s why this hurts so much. You should’ve told me. You should’ve given me the truth. I would’ve been furious, but I would’ve respected you for it. Instead, you hid it. That’s not love. And I can’t live like that.”
“Fiona…please. I’m begging you.”
“I’m done, Aleksei. Whatever else you’ve been hiding, I don’t even want to know.”
His jaw locks, eyes burning with something broken. “I will never let you go.”
The words sound like they’re breaking him, like he won’t survive losing me.
“Then kill me. Or let me walk away.”
He shuts his eyes, forehead falling against mine. The tremor in his breaths snaps me in half.
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“You’ll learn.” My soul splinters, hating every second of this.
He takes a shuddering inhale. “Please. Please understand. I was a different man then. And your parents, they had no choice. Not with the debt they owed. Not when I threatened them.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “They told me about that.” Tears continue to stream down my cheeks. “And do you know what I told them? That I would’ve done anything to help them. I did do anything. I agreed to marry you. But they sold me to you like property. And you went along with it.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Fiona, please. I don’t exist without you. I’ll do anything you want. Anything. Don’t walk away from me.”
“I already have.” The words leave me hollow and bleeding.
When I push off the wall, he grabs my wrist before I can move. “I’ll leave the house. You don’t have to go. Stay.”
I shake my head, tears falling faster now. “It’s not my home, Aleksei. It’s yours.”
His features twist with his anguish, his grip tightening. “You can’t go back to your house. They’re still after you. Do you understand that? I’d die before I let anything happen to you, ptichka.”
“I’ll go to a hotel.”
His face flashes with anger. “The men will go with you.”
“I don’t need—”
He cuts me off sharply. “No. That’s not negotiable. They will protect you. I will protect you. No matter what, you’re still mine.”
Still his…
God, what I wouldn’t do to forget all of this and tell him how badly I want to be his again.
“Fine,” I say instead, choking on too much pain.
He exhales harshly, the tension draining from him as his fingers slip from my wrist to my hand, weaving through my trembling ones. His words come out rough, unsteady, like they’re being dragged from somewhere deep.
“I cannot watch you walk away. This is killing me.”
“Then turn around,” I whisper.
His thumb moves over my skin in slow circles. “I can never do that, detka. You are mine. And I will always be yours. I’ll prove my worth to you. I’ll fix this. I’ll win you back.” Every syllable is raw and desperate. “This is not the end for us.”
I look at him one last time, memorizing the man I fell in love with…and the man who broke me. They’re both standing in front of me, wearing the same face.
A sad smile ghosts across my lips. “You’ve already lost me, Aleksei.”
I pull my hand free and turn toward the door. Each step is like walking barefoot across broken glass.
His gaze clings to me, scorching the space between us, but I don’t look back. Not as I walk down the hall with my spine stiff, pretending I’m not falling apart.
Only when the elevator begins its slow descent do I break, coming apart at the seams as I leave him behind—leave us behind—and walk away from the lie I mistook for love.
ALEKSEI
The sound of the door closing behind her detonates something inside me.
For a long moment, I stand there, rooted and numb, staring at the space she left behind. Her scent still hangs in the air, and the silence swells around me until it splits me open.
A growl tears out of me before I can stop it. The nearest chair goes flying, crashing into the wall with a sound that rattles through my skull. Papers scatter. Glass shatters. The decanter of whiskey explodes across the floor.
None of it dulls the throbbing in my chest, but I need to break something else because I can’t tear out the thing inside me that’s already breaking.
The table is next. I sweep everything off it in one violent motion, folders and pens crashing across the floor, and in the dark window, I catch my reflection: bloodshot eyes, breath heaving, the hollow outline of a man who just lost the only woman he’s ever loved.
I would give anything to go back and change that one decision. To never make her parents sign that contract. But it’s too late now.
The door opens and Konstantin steps in, his gaze sweeping the wreckage before landing on me.
“Feel any better?”
“Not even a little.”
He closes the door, walks over the broken glass, and stops a few feet away. “You’ll fix it.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think I can. She found out about the contract, and there is the other thing she does not know about. And if I tell her…” My throat locks up. “If I tell her, it will be worse.”
Konstantin exhales. “You will have to tell her anyway.”
I drag a hand over my face. “I don’t know how, brother. How do you do this?”
He knows what I mean. A marriage. Love.
He doesn’t answer right away. He walks to the window, hands in his pockets, staring out at the buildings.
“When the woman is worth it, you find a way.”
“I didn’t want this.” I slump into one of the leather chairs. “I fought against it. Against her. Against everything I felt. And now look at me.” I gesture at the chaos around us. “Pathetic.”
Konstantin turns, a faint smile ghosting his lips. “It’s okay to love, Aleksei. It’s okay to hurt. Not everything our father taught us was right. He made mistakes. A lot of them. With our mother. With us. We don’t have to repeat them.”
He comes closer. “You tried to hate her from the start. But the moment she entered your life, you lost that war. You can’t kill what’s real. You can bury it. You can deny it. But it will always claw its way back.”
I stare at the floor, his words like truth and torture all at once.
“If you love her…” he continues. “You fight for her. Fight for your marriage, however it began. Because that does not matter anymore. What matters is now. What you do next.”
I let his words hang between us before finally saying, “She’s going to a hotel.”
He just shrugs. “Then let her. Let her believe it is her idea. But you make sure it’s the best one, and that she is protected every second she is there. Then you show her who you can be without demanding she come back. Give her space. Just not enough for her to think she can forget you.”
A dry, humorless sound escapes me. “So now that you are married, you’re the expert?”
“I think so.” He flips his hands in the air. “Just look at me and Emilia. I’d say I’m more than qualified.”
A smile dies before it can settle.
“I love her, Konstantin,” I admit to someone else for the first time. “More than I thought I could love anything.”
“I know,” he says simply. “It will be all right.”
But I don’t believe him.
When he leaves, the silence returns, thicker than before.
My mind won’t let go of her face. It keeps replaying in brutal clarity.
The way her chin trembled. The way she looked at me like every word I had ever said meant nothing.
The sound of her voice when she said she loved me, like she could just erase it.
My fist slams into the wall. “Blyat!”
The thought of her somewhere crying, thinking I never loved her…it carves me open.
I’ll love her until the day they put me in the ground. Even if she never forgives me, she will always be mine. My wife. My punishment. My salvation.
And I’ll fight for her until my dying breath.