Chapter Seventeen
In which trying to do the right thing is such a bad idea.
Liria…
Departure day for St. Petersburg…
"Why don't you fly to St. Petersburg with us, Liria?" Ava says. There is a sudden, uncomfortable, quiet. All the laughing and chattering of the bridal party has ceased, and the other girls are looking at me. Empathetically, but it's still humiliating.
"It's all right," I say, bringing my chin up.
I smile at all of them, especially Violet, whose huge amber eyes look terribly sad.
I know she's doubting Alexsey's involvement, too.
"I'll just stay here and make sure he has his tux ready to go.
We'll be on the flight tomorrow. Someone's got to be the mean one and drag him there. So, great. I love that for me."
The girls all relax, and they laugh a bit with cautious relief. I leave before they pile into the SUVs taking them to the private airfield. Danyl hurries after me to open the door of the Bentley, helping me inside.
"Are we heading home, ma'am?" he asks.
"No…" I think for a minute. "Let's go to the park."
He turns in his seat, looking perplexed. "Which park, Mrs. Morozova?"
"Whichever is closest," I say softly. My fingers are lifeless and still on my lap. No music is flowing through them today.
I walk through Washington Square Park as my confused bodyguard follows.
He's brought the driver too, so maybe he thinks I'm going to do something rash.
The August heat draws everyone toward the huge fountain, little kids boldly leaning close to get splashed.
Dogs pull their owners along, eager to meet their canine buddies.
I stop at an ice cream cart and ask Danyl if he would like a cone. He looks horrified.
"No thank you, ma'am," he says. "I need to keep my hands free."
There's an unhoused lady lingering nearby who looks shyly interested, so I buy a triple scoop cone for her.
I take slow licks of my blackberry crunch ice cream, savoring it.
The bits of blackberries are sweet and juicy, and remind me of home where we'd go picking berries at one of the nearby farms to make our own pies.
I swallow past the lump in my throat and keep walking.
Alexsey is not going to Roman and Violet's wedding. I know it.
His brothers will be heartbroken. And Violet, who immediately assumes responsibility for everything from flu season to downtown traffic will be struck with guilt as well. Alexsey is so raw, and angry. The thought of being in the middle of that much unbridled happiness must feel unbearable to him.
Sitting on a bench by the playground, I force my fingers to remember a scrap of old music, tapping lightly against the weathered slats of the bench as I watch the kids race down the slide and clamor for the swings. The afternoon is giving way to the oranges and reds of sunset before I stand up.
He doesn't want to go to St. Petersburg and drown in his family's happiness. But I still have to try to change his mind.
I can hear the music pounding through the loft, even from outside the heavily-soundproofed door.
Violent, ferocious death metal, Morbid Angel, if I'm correct.
I open the door to unhinged, screaming vocals and screeching guitars, glancing at Danyl, who carefully looks in the other direction.
The downstairs is dark, except for Alexsey's studio, and the discordant, vicious metal blazes through the speakers on the wall.
In the middle of the pool of light is my shirtless husband, with a massive canvas in front of him.
He's roaring in fury, his right hand gripping a brush, smearing streaks of death on the painting.
Black and charcoal pigments, then blood red slashing through them.
His chest is covered in smears of paint and his face is set and intense in a way I've never seen before.
Taking a deep breath, I turn to Danyl. "I don't think we'll need anything else tonight, thank you." His dubious gaze returns to Alexsey and then to me.
"Mrs. Morozova," he says cautiously, "I could –"
"It's fine, thank you." I nod firmly, like I know what I'm doing, almost pushing this reluctant giant outside. I closed the door quietly and locked it, though I could have slammed it open and shut, brought sixty bikers in for a party and Alexsey wouldn't have heard us.
My common sense is angrily lecturing me to get the hell out of the house, away from the scene of rage-fueled music, and his hand swiping vicious streaks against the canvas.
Wrapping my arms over my stomach, I walk closer.
Slowly, like he's a wild animal and to be honest, he probably is.
About halfway through the living room area, he sees me and his arm freezes, muscles flexed, and bulging.
He's gripping the paintbrush in his fist like a gun.
"Music off." The speakers instantly shut off, now my ears are ringing in the silence. "You weren't supposed to be home yet," he says sharply. "Why aren't you with the girls?"
"I came home early," I whisper, staring at the canvas.
It's incoherent, rage-fueled swipes of color, but now I can see the pattern there.
The blending of anguish from the ash gray to the vicious red, like the canvas is bleeding out.
The painting is specific and intentional. Beautiful, in its own horrifying way.
Alexsey created it with his right hand.
His left hand may be gone, but his artist eye is still there. I give him a tentative smile. "This is incredibly powerful," I say, looking between him and the canvas.
The sculpted lines of his face are set in stone, only his glittering blue eyes still looking human.
"You will not look at my projects," he says, no longer suffused with white-hot fury.
We're back to polar indifference, and my heart gives a leaden thump.
"If you insist on being here, go upstairs. " He turns his back to me.
"Alexsey, the wedding, you know how much it means to-"
I stifle a shriek as he strides over to me, backing me up against the brick wall, the rough surface scratching my back.
"I own you. I do not give you permission to speak to me like a wife." One red-stained hand is next to my head, smearing the brick as he leans in on me.
"This is an arranged marriage," I say, angry that my voice shakes. "But that doesn't mean you own me."
Alexsey laughs softly and it rasps on me like a rusty nail.
"Your father signed the contract that gave the Krasniqi Fare to us. All his assets, Liria." I feel the heat coming off him, like he's a blast furnace. The smell of sweat and paint. "That includes you, the daughter of the man who tried to destroy the Morozovs. You are an asset, and I own you."
There's nothing to say.
Alexsey’s head tilts oddly, more like an animal’s than human. “Do you know how long it took him to die, your brother?”
My breath freezes in my lungs. He tilts closer and I give a tiny shake of my head, it’s all I can manage.
“Two weeks.” Alexsey throws back his head and laughs.
“Oh, fuck, he was begging me to end him by the second day. We didn’t, though.
Not until we’d squeezed everything he knew about your father’s organization.
All the time Dmitri was negotiating with Dritan; I was tearing his precious boy apart. I took pieces of him. One at a time.”
My face is wet, tears, I guess.
“You’d be surprised how many chunks you can take off a body and the heart. Keeps. Beating,” he whispers, intimate, like a secret.
I’m frozen, vision swimming because I can’t force my lungs to work.
He snaps, "Music on!" I jump half a foot as another barrage of hate pours from the speakers, and I turn around, walking up the stairs and shutting my bedroom door behind me.
An hour later, I'm still in the shower, having turned the water up as hot as it could go.
I'm sitting on the teak bench with my hands over my ears, trying to block everything out.
Alexsey must have one hell of a water heater because it takes another ten or twenty minutes for the water to turn cold.
I stay under the spray until my teeth are chattering.
When I take my hand away from my ear to turn the shower off, it's quiet again.
Whatever Alexsey was doing seems to be finished for the night. I don't bother with a towel to dry my hair, curling up tight like a potato bug under the covers of my bed, letting my wet hair soak my pillow on one side while my tears soak it on the other.