15. Joy
JOY
Three days later, I’m walking back from the bathroom—half asleep at two in the morning, when I hear movement downstairs.
Voices.
I come to a stop in the middle of the corridor. Smart people eavesdrop. That’s how they get to be so smart in the first place.
But in this instance, I’m not smart enough. I only speak one language.
The Russian language is very lost on me.
But I will say I find it hot. I can hear Valerian speaking. I know it’s him. He has a very rough, distinct voice. And it’s enhanced even more when he’s actually speaking Russian.
I keep forgetting he lived a whole other life before I was even born.
I clench my thighs together. God, the language is really rubbing off on me.
But it’s two a.m. and I need all the sleep I can get if I want to escape here in one piece.
I tear myself away from the wall I’ve been propped up against for the past few minutes, and head to bed.
But the voices grow louder. My bedroom window is open, and it looks out onto the courtyard.
I climb out of bed and peer outside.
That’s when I see someone fall out into the courtyard. Except, they didn’t fall. They were pushed.
What the hell?
I open the drapes, looking more out as Valerian and his burned friend follow the victim. That has to be what this man is. He’s running away, trying to get to the other side of the courtyard.
The side gate is where he’s heading to. He won’t have much luck escaping through there. Not at this time.
A dark figure emerges from the other side of the garden. There he is. The guard.
He raises his gun. But Valerian raises his hand, and the gun goes back to its original place, tucked back under the guard’s belt.
“I’ll deal with this one,” I’m pretty sure I hear Valerian say.
I suck in a breath, terrified. But I also can’t look away. There’s only one reason Valerian has brought a victim back to his place in the middle of the night.
I hear a muffled gargling sound cut across the courtyard as Valerian strangles the victim with his bare fucking hands.
The man can’t scream. He has tape over his mouth.
He collapses to the ground, choking. But he can’t even do that properly with the tape.
He starts to seize on the ground. I gasp in horror as Valerian and his friend just… stand over the man, watching.
Like he didn’t just strangle the poor man to death.
A thought pops into my mind.
Valerian didn’t just… strangle his own son, did he?
Adrenaline surges through my body. It sends me running downstairs in the end. I can’t fight the force. Can’t stop my legs from moving. I know I’m a lot safer in my room. But, god. Valerian just murdered someone in his house.
And at this point, I wouldn’t put it past him if he killed Igor.
Who I definitely don’t want dead. Hating someone is very different to wishing death on them.
I crash into Galina, the maid, at the bottom of the stairs, thudding right into her.
“Miss. Joy.” She catches me, looking into my eyes, reading whatever face I’m pulling. “Are you okay?”
“Nope. I just saw…from my window…”
I can’t even speak.
“I know,” consolidates Galina in broken Russian. “I understand. But please. No going out there.”
“Who was that man?”
“No idea. Best not ask questions.”
Why? Because I’ll be next?
“Who is the man, Galina?” I repeat.
She looks at me blankly. Yeah, Valerian is running a fucking tight ship around here. Pays the butler and maid, not just to run the house, but to keep them silent.
I push past Galina, ignoring her orders for me to get back in bed.
I head outside, taking the long way around the courtyard by walking through the stone cloister, staying hidden.
My bare feet are cold on the stone. There’s a chill in the air.
Or maybe that’s just me. Every hair on my body is standing on end as I get closer to where Nikolai and Valerian are still standing.
They’re muttering something in Russian again, pointing to the dead man on the floor.
Suddenly, Valerian stops talking. He turns over his shoulder. And his cold eyes glare right at me.
I freeze on the spot, a real deer in headlights. It’s like we’re meeting for the first time again.
But then I remember why I’m out here. I walk out into the courtyard, folding my arms over my chest. Anger twitches my lip. The adrenaline is still doing laps around my body.
Valerian sighs. “I’ll deal with her.”
Nikolai nods and walks off.
Deal with me just like he dealt with the man on the floor?
My breath catches in my throat.
“What are you doing out here, Joy? You should be sleeping.”
“I was peeing and heard voices.” I hitch my arms higher over my chest. “Now your turn.”
“Stay out of my way.”
Trust me, I’m trying.
And I will soon when I finally find a way out of this place.
I stare at the body on the ground, all the blood. I can’t see his face, but I don’t think this man is Igor. This guy is bald. And much shorter.
I don’t recognize the person, but that’s besides the fucking point.
I turn back to Valerian. His eyes might be very blue and terrifying, but they don’t scare me.
I mean they do, just a little. The blood dripping from his hands also has my heart pounding.
But I’m angrier than I am scared.
“You can’t just… kill someone, Valerian.”
“I can if they were trying to kill me.”
“What?” I space out. “How is that better?”
“It’s not,” says Valerian. “It’s the same.” He circles the body like a vulture. “It’s nothing new. People are trying to kill me all the time.” He prods the man with his boot, flipping him onto his back.
I gasp. His neck is pallid. And very fucking deformed. His head is tilted ninety degrees away from his body.
Again, I want to look away. But I can’t bring myself to.
“He was waiting behind the gates for me with a knife.” Valerian squats beside the man, grabbing his face, inspecting it. The man’s eyes are wide open. The pain is frozen in his eyes. Valerian looks right into them. “Somehow,” he continues, “the man knew my movements.”
“What do you mean?”
“I leave the property most nights to take care of… some things.” Valerian pinches the man’s cheeks, taking stock of his face. He’s paying close attention to every detail, running his finger over their lips, through his hair. He even touches the man’s eye.
It’s like he’s doing a post-mortem on the body…
Like he doesn’t already know the cause of death.
I watch Valerian. He’s getting a rise out of this, like him examining dead bodies is his equivalent of drinking caffeine in the morning.
It’s what keeps him alive.
I shiver. Especially when I look down at my hands and see the wedding ring. I’m married to a murderer.
Which basically makes me an accessory to murder.
After inspecting the man’s broken neck, Valerian rises back to his feet. He finds my eyes, narrowing his. “You look like a ghost, sweetheart.”
“Because I’m married to a psychopath.”
He laughs. That only confirms it even more.
“A lot of people in this city are psychopaths.”
Weird thing to say, coming from a psychopath.
Then again, it must take one to point another out from the crowd.
“They’re very good at hiding their tracks,” says Valerian.
“Everyone sees Los Angeles as a fantasy, full of showbiz, sparkling lights, nice beaches. Let me tell you something, sweetheart.” Valerian steps over the body, coming into my personal space.
His frame completely engulfs me. “The prettier something looks on the surface, the more evil there is going on underneath.”
I gulp. That would check out—case in point with Valerian.
He takes one look into my eye and returns to the body.
“This mudak also stabbed me in the chest. Too bad his gut was sticking out around the gate. I could see him from a mile away.” Valerian drags his eyes up and down the corpse.
“I could smell him, too. All that whiskey. It’s not good for him.
My son pays him all that money, and he throws it all away on things that will weaken him? ” Valerian tuts. “Amateur.”
“Igor was paying him?” I blink. “What?”
Valerian glances at me, his eyes vacant for a moment.
I think he just slipped up.
He wasn’t supposed to tell me that.
“Valerian? Is Igor hiring people to kill you?”
He wipes his bloody hands on his suit pants, stalking closer. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.”
“Well, I want to know the answer. Tell me.”
Valerian scans my face.
I have to clamp my thighs together. It’s such an unnecessary time to be turned on. The man just strangled someone with his bare hands. And the guy wasn’t exactly very small, either. Imagine the damage he could do to me.
The same finger he had inside of my pussy a few days ago is now being used to touch a dead man.
Valerian is back over there, analyzing the man’s neck, like he’s grading his own work. I wonder what he gives himself.
“Igor is working with other men.”
“How do you know?”
“Nikolai spotted him a few days ago downtown. He was talking to someone on the phone. Said it looked very suspicious.” Valerian looks up from the body.
“My team and I have been trying to get to the bottom of it all. The case has been running for three days. Tonight, I thought we were about to close it. But Lucas here,” Valerian shoves the man with his boot again, “didn’t want to give anything away.
Unfortunately, I had to kill him in the end. ”
Unfortunately.
“Who’s he working with?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” Valerian walks over to the stone cloister, throwing himself up against it. He watches me from the shadows, crossing his legs at the ankles. Folding his arms over his very broad chest.
I glance in his direction. And my pussy burns.
There’s something very distinguishable about him. You could try and find another man like him. But you’d be wasting your time.
He’s wearing a white shirt and black pants. No tie. That in itself is pretty average. The body wearing the clothes, however? Not so much.
The flecks of blood on his face look like freckles. He still has blood on his hands, but it’s starting to dry. Same for the blood on his shirt.
I like not knowing what he’s thinking, not knowing his next steps.
“Get to bed, printsessa. You shouldn’t be seeing these kinds of things.”
“You should’ve thought about that before you forced the ring on my finger.”
Valerian clenches his jaw. Some of his face catches the lantern light, causing the blood and sweat there to shine.
“I need you to stay out of my way. Lucas was the first. But there will be others.” Valerian tilts his head in assessment, reading my face. “There’s no reason to be alarmed, sweetheart. You’re perfectly safe here. I have twice the amount of guards than before. Nobody is getting in. Or out.”
I gulp, taking one last look at the body.
Exhaling a staggered breath, I start heading back inside.
“Get back to bed,” purrs Valerian. “There’s a good girl.”