20. Kira
KIRA
The nausea hit me before I even made it to the bathroom.
My knees cracked against the tile and everything came up into the toilet, leaving me gasping and gripping the toilet seat with both hands.
There wasn't much to bring up. Some water, what was left of my lunch, and bile that burned my throat raw.
When it finally stopped I sat back on my heels and wiped my mouth, trying to catch my breath.
I was so close to being free, so fucking close, and Nikolai held me back like the monster he was. Why couldn’t he let me go? Why couldn’t he just let me return home?
My father might not have been there himself to get me, but Rictor was right there, and Nikolai killed him rather than letting me go free.
Eventually I got up and rinsed my mouth at the sink.
The face in the mirror looked like someone I didn't recognize.
Mascara streaked down my cheeks, and my eyes were so puffy they looked swollen shut.
The blue dress was ruined too. Between snot from crying and a random stain, maybe from Nikolai or something in his car, I'd never wear it again.
I pulled it over my head, dropping it on the bathroom floor, and walked back to the bed in my bra and underwear to crawl under the covers and cry. I had never felt more defeated in my life.
My father had come for me. After weeks of nothing, with Nikolai convincing me my own parent didn't care, I'd started to believe I'd been abandoned. But my father had actually sent someone to get me.
Everything had been a lie. All of it, from his catfishing to his manipulation, and I hated him for it.
Everything I thought I felt, all that affection and fondness that had built between us, it was all a lie too.
It made my entire body shake with sobs, painful ones that tore up out of my chest and made my throat hoarse.
How could I have been so foolish to believe him?
After I knew what he'd done to me in the beginning, I let myself soften to him.
I let him get in my head. I let him between my legs—enough to get me pregnant, because now I was certain that was why I was getting sick all the time. And I still let him in my heart.
It hurt.
It hurt like hell. I was angry and embarrassed.
If he loved me or cared about me at all he couldn’t show it.
He hadn't shown it when I was in my father's reach.
Nikolai had looked at my shot at freedom and put a bullet in his head to keep me locked up longer.
Right when I was starting to hope again.
That wasn't love.
And this wasn't where I wanted to be.
I cried for a long time, completely ignoring how bad my nose was running, or the fact that my mascara was probably staining his sheets. Every time I thought I was done crying, I had another wave of fresh angry tears well up.
The crying burned itself out eventually when my body ran out of emotional energy to keep going. I lay there empty and spent with my face lying on my wet pillow and my ribs aching from so much sobbing. And I was entirely exhausted.
I had given him the best of me, and the benefit of the doubt, and he had done nothing but hurt me. Well, his access to me was over. I reached up and turned the light off, plunging the room into darkness before I pulled the covers up and turned over.
I didn't figure Nikolai would come to bed tonight. He was too angry with me. The look on his face when I'd hit him, and the way he'd gone silent and locked the door without a word, told me he was done with me for now. Maybe for good.
Maybe he finally realized that no amount of flowers or dinners or soft words at bedtime was going to turn me into the willing wife he wanted. Because they weren't. I had never been ready for marriage to anyone, let alone him, and all I could think about was finding a way to get away from him now.
So when I heard the lock turn and the door open only moments after I had turned the light off, my whole body tensed.
His footsteps crossed the room but the mattress didn't shift.
He didn't get in. Instead I sensed him crouching beside my side of the bed, close enough I could smell whiskey on his breath. Then the lamp clicked on and the warm light pushed through my closed eyelids, which I didn’t open.
His fingers found my hair and brushed it away from my face gently. Still I didn't look at him. He didn't deserve my attention, and I was so mad I didn't want to see his face ever again.
"Open your eyes," he said quietly.
I didn't want to but I did, maybe because I was afraid of him or maybe because I wanted him to see just how angry I was. He was so close I couldn’t even see all of him.
But I saw that he'd taken off his jacket and there was a tiredness in his eyes.
He looked just as emotional as me, except without the crying.
"Princess, I need to—"
"Please don't do this right now," I grit out, too angry to hear his excuses. I didn’t want to listen to him trying to apologize or call me his princess. I wasn't his.
"I need you to hear me, honey." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone and turned the screen toward me. A text message filled the display, forwarded from a number I didn't recognize to one of Nikolai's men. The timestamp was from yesterday.
I tried to make my eyes focus but even blinking didn't work. I had cried so much my vision seemed permanently blurry. "I don't get it," I snarled, looking away, but he shoved it in front of my face.
"Your father sent men to kill me, Kira. They weren't there to rescue you." His tone was so firm I couldn’t ignore him.
I grabbed his wrist and held the phone back again, this time able to see more. I saw it was a screenshot from my father's number, which I had memorized by heart, and that he was specifically telling someone that "the girl's not my concern, kill the boss."
"That came in yesterday," Niko said. "One of my guys intercepted it from Markin's network.
Your father isn't sending rescue teams, Kira.
He's sending hit squads. Rictor wasn't there to bring you home.
He was there to kill me… He just had the decency of heart to try to move you too.
Those were not your father's orders, though. "
"Stop," I croaked, feeling more tears welling up.
"I know it hurts. But you need to see this for what it is." Nikolai's eyes held so much concern, he almost had me convinced.
"I said stop." But he was lying. He had to be.
He put the phone down on the mattress and left it there, screen up.
Then his hand found my hair again, stroking slowly.
I hated how gentle he was being while I was lying here falling apart.
But I saw with my own eyes what my father had sent someone.
Unless he faked that too, but why go to that extreme?
I was confused and overwhelmed, and more than anything, I wanted comfort. Which Nikolai's touch was bringing me despite how angry I was with him.
"Why would he do this?" I whispered, knowing how pathetic I sounded. "I'm his daughter."
"Why did your brother leave?" he asked. "You told me when we were texting that your brother walked away from the family and cut contact. Why did he do that?"
I didn't answer because the answer was obvious and he knew it. My brother left when he was old enough to survive on his own because he knew who my father was. Something it took me a lot longer to figure out. And it was something I was still in denial about if that message was real.
"And your mother," he continued. "She's been in Europe for how long now? Months? Traveling with your aunts instead of being home with her family while her daughter is missing."
"She doesn't know," I insisted, defending her. If my mother knew, she would come. I knew it. She wasn't like him. How many times had I regretted not speaking with her and wishing I could call?
"Okay, well, even so… My point is that your family knows the monster your father is.
And I hate being the one to open your eyes, but you have to see.
You're safer here with me than with him, honey.
" And there was that damn gentle touch again, coaxing me out of my shell that had hardened around my heart toward him.
The tears came back and I couldn't stop them.
They leaked out of the corners of my eyes and ran sideways across my face and into the pillow.
But Nikolai stayed hovering there, not pushing me away.
And strangely it was comforting now. While the revelation dawned over my broken heart that Nikolai was probably right, my ability to push him away was waning.
"I want you here," he said. "In my bed, in my home, beside me—as my partner.
" He sighed and moved his phone to the night stand.
"I know you don't believe that yet and I know tonight made it harder.
But the sooner you let that sink in, the sooner you'll see that the person who actually wants you in his life is sitting right next to you. "
I whimpered as he leaned in, placing a petal-soft kiss to my forehead, and I didn't pull away. His lips stayed there, breathing me in, as I let my guard down. No matter what happened tonight, Nikolai was right about my mother and my brother. I didn't like admitting it, but it was the truth.
And while I was in this house against my will originally, it hadn't all been bad. My anger had made me think only of the negative things, but Nikolai wasn't only bad. He had good qualities, and I cared about him. More than I probably should.
“Easy, sweetheart,” he murmured against my skin. “You're safe, okay?"
His mouth brushed lower, finding my lips in a slow, careful kiss.
The moment our mouths met I melted. My eyes fluttered shut and a soft whimper escaped me as I opened for him.
His tongue slid against mine, tasting every little sigh I gave and my hands rose on their own, curling around his neck instead of pushing him back.
Heat bloomed low in my belly, spreading through every tired, aching part of me.