Chapter 27 Miko
MIKO
I can’t guess how long I’ve stared up at the ceiling of our room.
All I know is that I haven’t slept a wink by the time the first hints of sunlight start to creep through the window.
I’ve spent the entire night alone, plagued by thoughts of what I did, confident that Anika will never forgive me.
I put a guard on the old woman’s door—mostly to make sure Anika wouldn’t try to run away in the middle of the night.
But if she wants to leave me now, I don’t know that I have the heart to stop her.
I’m clearly not helping her heal, so maybe it’s the best thing for her.
I should have let her leave from the start, when she asked to go. I see that now.
I was selfish and overconfident in my certainty that only I could protect her.
It might have been the easy option—but it wasn’t the only one.
My heart wrenches to think of how else I might keep her safe. But I need to have an answer, one I’m sure will be good enough to protect her in my absence.
I close my eyes, that familiar feeling of having my guts ripped from my body overwhelming me once more—like Prometheus, who was cursed to have his liver eaten on repeat by an eagle as his punishment for daring to take fire from the gods.
That’s what I get for playing with fire, I think bitterly, but the metaphor’s fitting, really.
Especially when Anika is like the sun in my cold, dreary existence. I have to do whatever it takes to keep her safe—even if that’s from me.
I wonder if I could talk Leo and Sora into taking her in.
I don’t doubt my brother would if I begged him, but the thought of letting Anika go nearly breaks me.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive it when I feel like I’m unraveling at the seams after only one night without her.
Combing my fingers into my hair, I groan, releasing some of the building pain that threatens to crush me. I can’t take it any longer.
Glancing toward the soft pink horizon, I determine that it’s the best I’m going to do on my plan to wait until morning.
I need to see her.
Still, it’s impossibly early, and I have no doubt that the old crone would put me down like a mad dog if she thought I was coming to make a scene.
So I force myself to take a shower, brush my teeth, and put on something decent.
By then, it’s six fifteen.
Good enough, I decide, and stride purposefully toward the door.
Even after a full night of thinking about it, I don’t know what to say to Anika.
I fully intend to get on my knees and beg for her forgiveness if that’s what it takes.
I’m still wrestling with how to start my apology as I reach the door to Svetlana’s apartment.
My stomach knots as I realize I’m out of time. But I can’t wait any longer.
Combing my hair back out of my eyes, I take one more moment to pull myself together, then I knock on the unassuming door. I can hear shuffling behind it, and after several agonizing minutes, Svetlana opens the door.
Her eyes narrow, her expression turning sober when she sees me standing at her threshold, and I get the sinking feeling that she’s not too pleased by my presence.
“Is Anika in there?” I ask, trying to get a glimpse of her through the narrow crack in the door. “I’d like to speak with her—if that’s alright with you.” Not that the old woman could stop me if I demanded to have my way, but after last night, I don’t trust myself to know what’s best for Anika.
Svetlana huffs and lets the door swing wider. “You should ask her yourself if she’s ready to talk to you,” she says cheekily.
I bite back my quick retort when my eyes find Anika across the room.
She looks adorably rumpled, her silky blond hair mussed and falling in tangles around her face.
Her eyes are slightly puffy, like she spent much of last night crying, and my heart squeezes because I know I’m the reason.
She straightens, pulling her robe tighter around her body as she traps her lower lip between her teeth.
It nearly undoes me to see her so hesitant as she looks at me.
“Anika,” I breathe, taking an involuntary step toward her.
Somehow, with an iron grip on my will, I manage to keep it to one step, and I slowly lift my hand, reaching for her.
I turn my palm up in a submissive gesture, willing her to come closer.
My pulse quickens when she takes a tentative step, then all at once, she rushes across the room, tears spilling from her eyes as she dashes straight into my arms.
I’m struck dumb, my breath trapped in my lungs as I tense, completely stunned.
The air leaves me in a huff of disbelief, and carefully, I wrap my arms around her, gently enveloping Anika’s slight body.
“What’s wrong, topolina? Why are you crying?” I ask, giving Svetlana a baffled look over Anika’s head as I try not to think too hard about how good it feels to hold my wife again.
“Miko, I’m s-so s-sorry,” she sobs, burying her face against my chest.
Frowning, I stroke her cornsilk hair. “What could you possibly have to apologize for?” I ask. “I came to apologize to you.”
Anika shakes her head so violently, I’m worried she might do damage to her neck, and her arms tighten around my waist as she continues to hide her face.
“Anika, look at me,” I plead, desperate for a window into what she’s thinking.
She sniffles, pulling back enough to wipe the tears from her cheeks, then she looks nervously up at me.
Relief washes through me as soon as our eyes meet, and I sigh as I run the backs of my knuckles over her tear-stained cheeks. “Talk to me,” I plead.
“I’m sorry I lost my mind,” she breathes, a hiccup racking her body and cutting her last word short. “I know I’m broken,” she adds, the tears beginning to flow once more as she tries to explain herself.
Heart torn to shreds, I cradle her face in my palm and try to dry her tears with my thumb, but for every one I catch, another takes its place, racing down to her chin.
“Shh, don’t say that. You’re not broken,” I insist, trying to comfort her.
“You did nothing wrong. I’m the one who should be apologizing.
I wasn’t being as careful as I should have been.
I got caught up in the moment and wasn’t thinking.
But that’s no excuse. I just didn’t realize… ”
I swallow hard as the horrible truth threatens to strangle me. A truth so ugly, I wouldn’t even let myself consider it before. But after what happened last night, I know deep in my gut that it’s true.
Pyotr didn’t just hit Anika.
That monster raped her.
God only knows how many times.
And my inability to face that cold hard truth is why I failed her so completely.
“I’m sorry, Anika. God, I’m so, so sorry,” I breathe, my chest aching with the weight of my remorse—remorse for what I did, remorse for what happened to her, remorse that she had no one to shield her from such a horrible, despicable fate.
Pyotr gave an oath.
He swore to love and protect her, and he violated that promise in every way imaginable.
The delicate fingers that wrap around my hand pull me from my dark thoughts, and I look deep into Anika’s soft, fathomless blue eyes.
“You don’t need to apologize,” she promises.
Her cheeks color as she drops her gaze, as if she’s embarrassed to say what she’s thinking.
“I liked what you were doing,” she whispers, her blush intensifying.
Then her eyes flick back up to meet mine.
“Really I did. I just—I think because you smelled like whiskey, and then…”
She casts a shy glance over her shoulder in Svetlana’s direction, but to her credit, the old woman’s doing an impressive job of looking like she can’t hear us.
“When you pinned my hands above my head…”
I nod, reliving that horrible miscalculation with fresh shame as I remember how suddenly her attitude changed.
“I think I got stuck in a memory or something. I don’t know. I saw Pyotr’s face, and I thought you were him—” She swallows hard, a haunted expression on her face as she turns her head to look off into the middle distance. “I panicked.”
“I get it,” I rasp. “And I swear to you, if you give me another chance, I won’t ever let that happen again.”
Anika smiles up at me sadly. “You can’t promise that. I mean, how could you possibly know what might trigger me when I didn’t even know that might happen? I mean, maybe none of it would have been a problem if I hadn’t gotten so worked up about my conversation with Sora—”
“What conversation?” I ask, my stomach sinking once again as I recall the way Leo’s wife was avoiding my eye last night.
Anika pales slightly, as if she can sense the warning in my tone. Her eyes search my face, and she bites down on her lip, showing off that adorable gap between her teeth.
“Anika,” I press, my temper rising.
If Sora said something that Anika doesn’t want to tell me, it must have been bad—bad enough to make Anika, subconsciously or not, place me in the same category as her abusive former husband.
“It was nothing, really,” she assures me. “I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it.”
Anger toward my sister-in-law ignites inside me for raising Anika’s doubts when I’ve worked so damn hard to find a way past her defenses. “But it was serious enough that you don’t want to tell me about it,” I point out. “Bad enough that you think it might have triggered your flashback?”
“No, I—” Anika flushes furiously and closes her eyes as if to collect her thoughts. “She was only checking in to make sure I’m alright.”
“Because she thinks that, as my wife, you wouldn’t be,” I finish, reading between the lines. It’s a gut punch to realize how everyone must see me—even Leo’s wife, who I would think should know better than to judge someone by first impressions after she’s learned to love my brother.
“I’m sure she doesn’t think that,” Anika insists. “But she did mention that…”
“That what?” I demand when she hesitates. I immediately regret it when Anika flinches.
Behind her, Svetlana casts me a warning glance, and I quickly rein in my temper.
“Well, that you threw a knife at her once.”
Merda.
I completely forgot about that.
It was early on after she and Leo got married, and in truth, I’d been so distracted working on one of the cars, I don’t think I fully registered that she wasn’t Sandro, like I thought.
He and I had an ongoing game for years that challenged us both to stay on our toes.
I’m not even sure if I thought to apologize before Sora disappeared.
“Yeah, alright,” I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose as I try to find a way to explain that won’t make me sound like a monster.
“So, you did throw a knife at her?” Anika asks, her voice taking on a gratifying note of surprise.
“Well, yes, but it was just a stupid game—one I wouldn’t even dream of playing with anyone but Sandro.
But the masochist has this philosophy that you can’t learn to fight through simple drills alone.
I was working with him on stealth and sneaking up on opponents…
I wasn’t looking, and I thought she was him. ”
To my astonishment, Anika actually giggles.
“That’s funny to you?” I ask, confused.
“You really will stop at nothing to help your brothers, won’t you?” she asks lightly.
I suppose I hadn’t really thought about it like that, and I shrug. “No, I guess not.”
With a smile, Anika leans up onto her tiptoes as she wraps her arms around the back of my neck.
My hands automatically move to pull her close, and electricity crackles across my lips when she graces me with a chaste kiss.
Then she slowly lowers herself back down.
“I trust you, Miko. You’ve been nothing but good to me, and if you’re willing to have me, then of course I want to give this another chance,” she says, her words making my heart soar.
Then her expression turns anxious once more.
“It’s just, I apparently still have some ghosts to exorcise.
Are you sure I’m the kind of wife you want? ”
Cradling Anika’s perfect face between my palms, I hold her gaze so she knows just how sincerely I mean it. “You’re the only wife I’ll ever want,” I promise, then I lean in to seal her lips with a kiss.