29. Ashes in Her Wake Rafael
She walks into the mansion like a ghost. Her body is coated in dirt and blood.
“What the fuck happened?” I growl.
She sinks onto the couch. Her gaze is distant, locked on something that isn’t here. I drop to my knees in front of her, hands reaching for her face. My palms cradle her cheeks, and her skin feels cold.
“Did that fucker hurt you?” I snarl, the words punching out of me, each syllable edged with violence. My hands shake against her skin. “I swear to God, Mila, if he laid a hand on you—”
She cuts me off, her voice soft, hollow. “He’s dead.”
The world stills. “What?” I rasp, leaning closer, needing to hear it again, to understand.
“He’s dead,” she repeats. “I killed him.”
For a second, I don’t know what to feel. Relief? Satisfaction? Hell, maybe pride. That bastard deserved the worst of deaths. But as I stare at her, the weight of what she’s saying slams into me. This isn’t her. This isn’t the Mila I know.
“I killed him,” she whispers again, and then it happens.
She starts laughing.
It’s not real laughter. It’s broken, jagged, and it cuts through me like glass. The sound fills the room and I don’t know what to do.
“Mila,” I murmur, but she doesn’t stop. She laughs and laughs until it twists into a scream that tears its way out of her, raw and violent, before she collapses into me, sobbing.
Her body shakes against mine, her tears soaking through my shirt as I hold her. Then, she stops. Her body goes still. No more tears, no more sobs. Just silence.
I pull back and brush her hair away from her face. “Talk to me , Kroshka ,” I plead. “Please, look at me. Say something.”
She doesn’t.
I need answers. Ivan, Arkadi—they’ll tell me what the hell happened. But later. Right now, she’s here, and she’s… not here.
“How about you wash up?” I ask.
Nothing. She gives no reaction. She does not even offer me a flicker of acknowledgment.
Fuck.
I scoop her into my arms without waiting for a response. She doesn’t resist; she’s limp against me, her head lolling onto my shoulder like she’s made of nothing but bone and sorrow.
At the door, I set her on her feet. “Mila,” I murmur, brushing her shoulder.
She stands there, unblinking, unmoving. A statue.
I lead her inside, my hand on her shoulder, steering her like she’s forgotten how to exist. Slowly, I peel her clothes off, dirt and blood staining my fingers.
The water runs, steam filling the space as I test the temperature. “Come here.”
She steps forward without hesitation, and that’s worse somehow. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t cover herself. She’s just… gone.
I guide her into the shower, my jaw clenching as the water cascades over her, turning red, then brown as it washes away the filth. I grab the shampoo, working it into her hair, pulling out bits of leaves and wood tangled in the strands.
I lather the soap onto the loofah, my hands careful as I scrub her arms, her back, and her legs. Heat coils in my gut, unbidden and unwelcome, and I hate myself for it. This isn’t the time. This isn’t what she needs.
I rinse her off, turn off the water, and grab a towel, wrapping her in it like she’s something that might shatter if I’m not careful.
“Stay,” I say, though she doesn’t move anyway.
I dry her hair, her arms, her legs. My shirt is the first thing I grab, slipping it over her head. It falls to her knees, swallowing her small frame.
I guide her to the bed, and she sits on the edge, staring into nothing, her hands limp in her lap.
“You must be happy,” she says, her voice flat, distant.
I blink, caught off guard. “What?”
“Aren’t you satisfied? You’ve always wanted me broken. After what I’ve done… I’m broken now.”
Broken. The word shouldn’t taste like bile in my mouth, but it does. I scowl, my chest tightening, a storm raging where my thoughts should be. That was what I wanted once, wasn’t it? To see her fractured, to have her at her weakest so I could hold the pieces in my hands and mold her into what I needed her to be.
But now? Now, all I can think about is how much I want to fix her.
She reaches out, her fingers brushing against my face, trying to pull the corners of my mouth upward into a mockery of a smile. “Smile,” she mutters. “Celebrate. Be happy. Karma hit.”
Her touch burns, but not in the way it usually does. I grab her wrist gently, prying her hand away from my face. I bring her palm to my lips, pressing a kiss to the skin there, hoping to God she feels something—anything.
“I don’t think I’ve ever properly apologized to you, Rafael,” she whispers. My name on her lips sounds like surrender.
Tears spill down her cheeks, glistening tracks that make her look so small, so human, so… mine.
“I’m sorry,” she continues, her words trembling as they fall. “I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head, but she doesn’t stop.
“You’re right, Rafael. I traumatized you.” Her laugh is bitter, her breath hitching as she wipes at her face with the back of her hand. “I’ve been trying to minimize my role in all this, because the guilt would eat me alive if I admitted it to myself. But you’re right.”
Her eyes finally meet mine, and the weight in them could crush me.
“I am my father’s daughter.”
The room feels too small, too suffocating. The air is heavy with her pain, and I’d gladly choke on it if it meant taking some of it away from her.
“No matter how much I apologize to you, it will never be enough. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Her words are a frantic chant, breaking with every gasp of air she struggles to pull in.
I can’t take it anymore.
“Mila,” I say, gripping her face, forcing her to look at me. “Breathe. Breathe for me. ”
She takes a shaky breath, then another. I nod, even as my grip on her face tightens.
“You were right, Kroshka. You were only nine. You were a child. You didn’t know.”
My voice is calm, steady. But inside? Inside, I am a battlefield of emotions I can’t control. I’m not just saying this to comfort her. It’s the truth. She was a child. She didn’t know. She couldn’t have.
But logic didn’t soothe the rage that’s lived inside me for years. It didn’t erase the moments I wanted to hate her.
I fucked up. I painted her as a villain, knowing damn well she’s pure as snow. I wanted to hate her so badly that I broke her instead. Made her see herself through my anger, twisted and tainted. I didn’t just hurt her, I messed with how she sees herself. And there won’t be a moment in my life where I won’t regret it. Watching her now, so shattered, is what finally confirmed it. I wanted her to feel a hate I didn’t even muster for her, but all I did was make her hate herself.
She shakes her head violently, trying to pull away from my hands, but I don’t let her go.
“It doesn’t matter,” she spits. “I still did it. I hurt everyone close to me. It’s like I’m a curse.”
My jaw tightens. “ Kroshka— ”
“No, Rafael.” Her voice rises. “No. I burn everything I touch. Everything I touch turns to ash.”
My thumbs brush away her tears even as they fall faster. “That’s not true. That’s not fucking true, Mila. You’re not a curse. You don’t destroy—you survive.”
She doesn’t look convinced.
“My mother died because of me,” she wails.
I stay silent, forcing myself not to interrupt. She needs to say it, no matter how much it kills me to hear.
“She found out that Father used to…” Her voice falters, her fingers twisting in the hem of her shirt like she’s trying to tear herself apart. “He used to…”
She blurts it out all at once like its poison she can’t contain inside. “He took pictures of me when I was a child. Inappropriate ones. She found out, confronted him, and he—he killed her.”
My chest tightens and my vision darkens at the edges. Shit. Fuck.
I almost wish she hadn’t killed the bastard. Because what I would’ve done to him—what I still want to do—would make the devil himself shudder.
“I… I also found a camera in my room. And I heard him talking about me… It wasn’t the way a father should talk about his daughter.”
Her words claw at me, ripping through flesh and bone. My fists clench, trembling with the force of the rage boiling under my skin. I want to castrate him. I want to dismember him, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left but a fucking stain on the floor.
But right now? Right now, I just want to hold her together.
“I used to think my mother abandoned us,” she continues, grief swallowing up her small frame. “That she chose herself over us. But all this time, she was buried in the backyard, right next to the fountain, Rafael. Right next to our fountain. ”
She looks up at me and her eyes scare me. No. They terrify me. They are empty and cold. “Secretly, I used to look down on her. For leaving. For not choosing us. But she died protecting me. And all while I… I used to look down on her. I’m a horrid person.”
“You’re not a horrid person, Mila.”
She shakes her head, unwilling to believe it, and it tears something vital inside me.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m so fucking sorry, Kroshka. But this isn’t your fault. None of it is. Your mother—” I swallow. “Your mother loved you. She died protecting you. And we’ll give her the goodbye she deserves. I promise you that.”
“And Father?”
I tilt my head, my jaw tightening. “Do you want a funeral for him?”
She doesn’t even hesitate. “No.”
Good.
“Because I will torture him, ” I say. “Even in death.”
“Do whatever you want, I’m not the only one he wronged.”
Even now, drowning in her own pain, she thinks of me. Of justice. Not herself.
“I wish everyone could erase me from their life like you erased me so easily.”
My head snaps toward her. “What the fuck are you talking about?” I spit, my words rougher than I intend.
“I deserve to be forgotten. It’s the only way for people in my life to find peace—if I disappear.”
“Don’t talk like that,” I growl, my fists clenching at my sides.
“Why not?” She yells. “Isn’t it the truth? You’ve already washed me out of your life like some old stain. Even the drawing.”
She gestures toward the wall, and my stomach twists like a knife has been shoved in.
“Even that,” she whispers, her eyes dull with disappointment.
My blood boils. I stand abruptly, my body moving on instinct as I cross the room.
I grab at the wallpaper and rip it. The sound of tearing paper echoes through the room. Beneath the layers of wallpaper, there it is, the little drawing. Two stick figures, side by side. One bigger. One smaller. Me and her.
I turn back to her, the shredded wallpaper dangling from my hands. “I wanted to erase you,” I hiss. “So fucking badly. I wanted to wipe you out of my life. Out of my mind. But you’re not one to be easily forgotten, Mila. The moment you weave yourself into someone’s life, you’re there forever. It’s just the kind of woman you are.”
She steps toward the exposed drawing, her fingers brushing over it like it’s something precious.
She smiles, despite the tears streaming down her face. Her gaze lingers on the childish scrawl like it’s a treasure she never thought she’d see again.
And I watch her, every part of me consumed by her. By the gravity of her pain. By the fact that no matter how much I tried to sever her from me, she’s been carved into my very fucking soul.