Chapter 14 - Sofia #2
Fragments reach me through the haze:
"…speaking perfect Russian…" "…found her with Mikhail's journal…" "…get her to the bed…"
I try to hold onto the memories. Misha's laugh, the garden, the promise I made, but they're already receding like a tide pulling back from shore.
No. No, I need to remember. I need to know what I promised.
But the darkness wins.
I surface slowly, like swimming up from deep water. Alexei's bed. Dark outside. I've lost hours to whatever happened in the study. My head throbs, but it's manageable now. The splitting pressure gone, leaving only echoes.
He's in the chair by the window, keeping vigil, watching me with an intensity that makes my chest tight.
Not sleeping, not moving, just watching.
The way he looks at me, like I'm something precious and poisonous all at once, makes my chest ache.
The diary rests in his hands, leather cover catching lamplight.
As soon as he sees I'm awake, he moves toward the door, leaving his vigil, leaving me, and panic flares in my chest.
"Alexei?"
"I'll be in the study." His hand tightens on the doorframe until his knuckles go white. "Don't… don't go anywhere."
He leaves for the study, taking the diary with him and pulling the door shut with careful control that speaks of barely leashed emotion.
I'm alone with the weight of revelation crushing my chest.
I lie in his bed, staring at the ceiling while my mind churns through fragments that won't quite connect. The ceiling offers no answers, just shadows from the lamplight that shift like ghosts.
I knew Mikhail. Not just knew him, loved him, if the diary is true. All this time, I thought I'd somehow gotten an innocent Russian boy killed through carelessness. But that's not what happened. We were friends. Maybe more. He wrote about me like I hung the stars.
He was going to warn me about something. His father's plans. A meeting.
The massacre.
The pieces are there, floating just out of reach. Every time I try to grasp them, they slip away like smoke. My mind has built walls so thick that even this revelation can't fully break through.
What did I promise you, Misha?
The name feels right on my tongue, familiar in a way that makes my chest ache. Somewhere in my fractured memory, a fifteen-year-old girl is laughing in a garden with a boy who wants to build beautiful things. They're teaching each other languages, sharing secrets, making promises.
And then blood. Screaming. Mikhail dead at eighteen, his dreams of architecture rotting with him.
From the study comes the sound of breaking glass. Sharp, violent. Something heavier follows. Wood splintering maybe, or ceramic shattering against a wall.
Each crash makes me flinch, like the sound is breaking something in my chest too. Another crash. Then silence. Long, heavy silence that presses against my ears.
I lie still, barely breathing, when I hear the study door open. Soft footsteps. He's coming back.
The bedroom door opens silently. I keep my eyes closed, but I feel him enter the room like a change in air pressure.
The floorboards creak slightly under his weight.
He doesn't go to the chair. He comes to the bed.
Stands over me. I can feel his gaze like hands on my skin, studying every inch of the woman his brother loved.
My breath catches, but I keep my eyes closed.
The mattress doesn't dip. He's just standing there, watching.
The weight of his stare makes my skin heat.
Even devastated, even knowing what I was to Mikhail, my body responds to his proximity.
My nipples tighten beneath his shirt, and I hate myself for it.
"Open your eyes, Sofia."
His voice is raw, devastated, dangerous.
I open them. He's looking down at me with an expression I've never seen. Grief and hunger twisted together into something that makes my breath catch. His white shirt is disheveled, a spot of blood on his knuckles. From whatever he broke in the study.
"I read the diary."
I don't reply, I can't.
"You loved him." Not a question.
"Yes," I admit.
"He loved you."
"Yes."
His hand moves toward my face, stops inches away, trembling. I can feel the heat radiating from his palm, so close but not touching. The space between us crackles with everything we can't say.
"What am I supposed to do with you now?"
The question hangs between us like a blade, and I don't know if he's asking me or himself. His hand hovers there, shaking slightly, caught between reaching for me and pulling away.
"I don't know," I whisper.
"You said 'I promise.' Over and over while you were… whatever that was. What did you promise him, Sofia?"
"I don't know. I can't…" Tears slip down my temples into my hair, cold against my scalp. "I can't remember. Something about a warning. He was going to warn me about something."
Silence stretches between us. He looks down at the diary, then back at me, still watching from above me.
"My brother wrote about you for months. Called you the best thing that ever happened to him." His jaw works like he's fighting words. "And then he died. And you just… forgot?"
The accusation cuts deep because it's true. Whatever we were, whatever we meant to each other, I lost it all that night.
"I didn't choose to forget. And I don't know if I kept the promise I made. I don't know if I…" The words stick in my throat like broken glass. Betrayed him. Failed him. Got him killed.
His eyes are wet, glittering in the low light. "Only family called him Misha. And you."
The weight of it settles between us. I wasn't just some girl who got his brother killed. I was someone Mikhail loved. Someone who loved him back. Someone who mattered.
His fingers finally make contact. Just the tips, tracing my cheekbone with devastating gentleness. The same place he touched last night, before everything changed. My body arches slightly toward his touch before I can stop it, and his breath hitches.
"You respond to me." His thumb brushes across my bottom lip. "Even knowing you loved him. Even now."
"I can't help it." The admission tears from me. "I try not to, but…"
"Don't." His hand cups my face fully now, thumb still on my lip. "Don't try. It's the only thing that makes sense anymore."
The weight of his palm against my cheek, the way his thumb presses slightly into my mouth. It shouldn't make me wet, not after what we've just discovered. But my body doesn't care about shoulds. It only knows his touch, his scent surrounding me, the dangerous heat in his eyes.
"Mikhail is dead," he says, voice rough. "But you're here. In my bed. Wearing my shirt. Responding to my touch."
His thumb pushes deeper, and I part my lips involuntarily, letting him in. The gesture is intimate, possessive, wrong in every way. His pupils dilate as my tongue brushes against his skin.
"What would he think?" His voice drops to a whisper. "His lover and his brother…"
He pulls his hand away abruptly, stepping back from the bed. The loss of contact makes me whimper before I can stop myself.
"What am I supposed to do with you now?" he repeats, like it's the only thought that matters.
Without a backward, glance, he turns and crosses the room. The door closes behind him, leaving me alone with the ghost of his touch on my face and the weight of everything unsaid.