Chapter 42
Mikhail
My wife sits on the bed with a small plate in her lap, struggling to chew on a piece of buttered toast with jam.
It’s been a few days since I came back, and her mood hasn’t wavered.
Not that I’m expecting her to suddenly feel better.
I just fucking hate that there’s nothing I can do to ease her pain.
And that she’s not eating properly—she can’t.
The soft sound of bread against porcelain spears the silence.
“Please take this back?” she whispers, avoiding my gaze.
Before I get to say anything, she’s already taking the plate off her lap and moving to curl back into herself. I don’t know how much weight she’s lost, but it’s enough to have me worried.
“Lastochka…you need to eat.”
No answer.
I refrain from demanding anything of her, but I don’t know what else to do either. This fucking helpless feeling…
Her gaze slips over to me. “Don’t look at me like that.”
I frown, discarding the plate on the nearby nightstand—she might still eat it later. Then, I move closer, crouching by her side of the bed. “Look at you how?”
“Like you meant it. What you said to me that night…”
I shake my head slowly. “You can’t ask me not to love you. I wouldn’t know how to do that.”
Regret softens the pain on her face just a touch. “You need to stay away from me, Mikhail. You can’t sleep in here anymore, and you can’t keep circling me. What if…what if I snap? What if I do to you what I did to—”
I hold her face with both palms. “You don’t scare me, sweetheart.
Dying at your hand would be a fucking privilege.
” If only she knew how many lives I took and how creatively I took them, she’d realize her killing me would be a far superior death than any other I deserve. “But that’s not going to happen.”
She shrinks back, as if she doesn’t believe me. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. Because I know you.”
I refrain from saying more, even though there’s a lot more I could tell her. But right now, I don’t have anything but more questions, and I can’t risk disorienting her with an alternate story that may not even exist.
“What will it take to finish one piece of toast?” I ask.
Again, she doesn’t answer. And when she turns to her other side, I close my eyes, releasing a slow breath.
One more day. I’ll give her one more day to start eating, and if she doesn’t, I’ll have to find some other way to keep her alive.
“How is she?” Victoria asks, nervously fidgeting with her wedding ring.
I briefly told them what happened the other day, but other than that, I’ve pretty much stayed in my wing, preoccupied with thoughts and questions that go unanswered. This morning, however, I went looking for Wolfgang for some reason. Now, we’re all here in the living room.
“Not well. She won’t eat,” I say.
I’m sitting on the couch, knees wide and forearms braced on my thighs.
Opposite me, Victoria stands by the window, and Wolf mimics my stance on an armchair.
They both look genuinely concerned. For once, we’re no longer fighting each other, our past tucked away neatly in some mental drawer we’ve closed for now.
“Keep giving her different options. Maybe a smoothie, something she doesn’t have to chew on at all,” Victoria suggests.
I simply nod, head down, taking it into account.
“What else is on your mind?” Wolf asks.
“Just…stuff.”
“There’s no need to do everything alone all the damn time,” he says. “I’m here. I’m always fucking here, and I want to help you.”
“We both are.” Victoria steps in, an arm on the backrest of her husband’s chair.
I lean back, running a hand down my face. They’re right. This is not the same as paying for the sins of my past. If anyone’s offering to help make my wife feel better, I’d be an idiot to refuse.
“It’s this whole fucking thing. Something doesn’t feel right,” I tell them. “I don’t think Antonio’s lying about anything he told me—I didn’t get that from the way he spoke—but there were cracks in his story. And they’re driving me insane.”
“Like?” Wolf asks.
“Like…the fact that her piano teacher was the one who found Cecilia that night. It struck me as odd, but Antonio said she was good friends with the wife and had no motive. Whereas Cecilia, he said she looked calm after what she did and started saying she was sorry. That’s also fucking odd.
I mean, have you met the girl? She has no bad bone in her body.
She apologizes when other people bump into her. ”
“The piano teacher is Lucia Donatello, who came to the wedding, yes?” Wolf asks.
I nod. “She worked at The Hive. But she had retired long before she started teaching Cecilia. Hard to imagine killing Antonio’s wife would’ve been part of a job she was given.”
“Depends,” Wolf says, cocking his head. “Just because she was no longer working with the club doesn’t mean she refused freelance gigs that came after her retirement.”
“Maybe. But nothing notable happened since then. From the brief research I did on her before going to San Maleno, she doesn’t seem to have benefited in any way after Antonio’s wife died. Same income, same job, same place.”
Wolf brings one ankle over his knee, thinking. “They could’ve played a longer game. Maybe the benefits weren’t supposed to come immediately after the murder. Is he fucking this woman?”
I shake my head. “She’s too old for his taste.”
“How did she react to everything? Did Antonio say anything about that?” Victoria asks, taking a seat. “If Lucia was good friends with his wife, she must have been devastated.”
I look up, the question piquing my interest. “Devastated is not really how he framed it. More like horrified. Scared of a six-year-old.”
“You mean a woman who grew up training at The Hive?” Wolf asks, perking his brows.
“Those girls are trained to see much worse. Maybe Antonio bought her act in the moment because of how intense everything was.” He shrugs.
“Not saying Lucia actually killed Giada, but I wouldn’t disregard her involvement just yet.
Talk to Maksim—have him look into her fully.
I can put some of our men on her, just in case. ”
Yeah…that’s it. That’s what I need instead of going in circles like a fucking idiot—a plan, something palpable I can do while Cecilia slowly comes back to herself.
I stand, already pulling out my phone as I call the hacker and ask for what I need, down to that woman’s fucking birth certificate and who she sleeps with.
“Stop any other work. This is urgent. Understand?”
“Even the...?” Maksim asks.
“Did I fucking stutter? Everything else is on hold.”
A second of silence, and then he says—“Give me a few days. I’ll keep you posted.”
I shut down the call, tapping the back of my phone impatiently. A few days can’t come soon enough.
The possibility of being able to tell Cecilia this was all a big fucking misunderstanding is keeping me wired.
I need her to know there’s nothing wrong with her, that whatever happened that night wasn’t her fault.
I won’t accept that she has to live with this burden her entire life, even if I find Lucia Donatello wasn’t involved.
I’ll fucking frame her if I have to. Anything to protect my perfect wife from those fucking demons.
“Hey,” Victoria says, making my gaze snap in her direction. “We’ll figure this out. No matter what. We’re all here for Cecilia.” She nods like she fully means it.
I run a hand through my hair.
And it’s my brother this time who opens his mouth to say something as he comes to stand beside me.
“Whatever it takes,” he says, and I believe him.