Chapter Thirty-Three
B arely legal when Princeton had been run down, I had been too emotional at the time to truly investigate on my own, and also drunk.
His death had driven me to the bottle, and I could hardly even remember most days.
My Daideó had handled everything related to his bills and had even tried to keep as much of Ekaterina’s story out of the media, although he’d failed greatly with that endeavor.
I could still remember her tear-stricken face as she recalled being scared as her reason to flee.
And she had been scared of Princeton, a personable jock who got along with everyone.
He’d been everything I hadn’t been, and everything I still wasn’t.
My brother deserved to live a full life, yet I was the one who was spared.
And Cillian. If the vengeful Gods wanted to take someone, and our parents, aunts, and uncles hadn’t been enough, he took my kid brother, too.
I’d been angry at the world, and I still was because all these years later, it was just as unfair as it had been back then.
The rage I harbored had festered inside of me, and I needed to get vengeance.
Marrying Ekaterina had never been part of the initial plan, but plans did change.
Mine had. And maybe her losing our baby had a part in a greater one that was bigger than her. Bigger than me.
But things had started to change even before that fateful day.
Somehow, I had actually grown to like my wife.
To an outsider, they would think I was being funny for even thinking a thing like that.
Of course, I was supposed to like my wife.
I was supposed to love her. Only, I hadn’t when we’d first said our vows.
I couldn’t say the same with any honesty now.
Falling for her had been the best and worst thing that could’ve ever happened. We were tethered to one another by those fake vows, only they didn’t need to be lies. It didn’t matter anyway because she hated me, and I could see it in her eyes every time I looked down into them.
“Is this going to be how things are from now on?” I asked her.
She huffed, but otherwise said nothing, which only drew my ire more.
Deciding against dinner at her favorite steakhouse, I reversed course and headed back home.
Tonight, we needed to put our cards out on the table, and it was best done in private.
The last thing I needed was an audience.
I couldn’t let any word get back to my grandfather, or else this entire marriage would’ve been for nothing, as he would erase me from his will anyway.
“W-where are we going?” she asked me nervously.
“To the house. You’re obviously not ready to go out and act civilized.”
“Civilized? That’s rich coming from you,” she retorted.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“I know what you’re doing here.”
“And what is it that you think you know?”
“You fool no one, least of all me. Just shut up and drive. I can’t wait to get out of this car and away from you.”
Knowing the truth in her words, it was like a knife to the chest. As we often did in this dysfunctional relationship of ours, everything always led to a fight.
Sometimes, I wondered if this wasn’t all intentional.
As I stole a glance at her, she was now staring at me and scowling.
The Ekaterina I both loathed and loved was coming back.
“It’s nice to see the real you returning,” I quipped.
“I’ve always been me. It’s the only person I know how to be.”
“Lately, you’ve been acting like a sad puppy dog. And you’re not one of them. You’re a hellcat. A puisín.”
“And you’re an asshole. I just miscarried. How in the hell was I supposed to act?”
“Shall I remind you that, as you were supposed to be getting pregnant, you were actively taking birth control until the day you got caught red-handed. You never wanted to get pregnant, so I thought you would’ve been relieved.”
“Fuck you, Kingston!” she said, then added. “I’ll walk. Let me out right now.”
“I’m afraid I cannot do that.” As she tried to open the door, I locked it once more, then nearly sighed in relief when I spied the parking garage. I kept my finger on the lock button until I parked the car in my designated space.
Seconds later, I stopped her from exiting the vehicle by wrapping my hand around her throat, then forcing her head toward me. The daggers she shot at me would’ve once wounded me, but they were nowhere near as sharp as the ones in my chest, and the ones that constantly twisted as they dug deeper.
“I’m sorry you lost the baby,” I said to her sincerely. “But your attitude is due to a hell of a lot more than that. What else is wrong with you?”
“You’re so fucking dense. How could you not know?”
“Not know what?” I asked.
She laughed hysterically for a couple of seconds before she sobered up immediately. As she tried to remove my hand from her neck, I tightened my grip. “I’m more pissed at myself than I am at you.”
“Why?” She was talking in riddles.
“Because over the last couple of months, I’d honestly thought you were beginning to like me. Genuinely. And that you wanted something more with me.”
“Want you?” I asked.
How in the hell could you think that I didn’t?
“The joke’s on me after all. I’ve never been anything to you.”
“You are something to me, puisín. You’re a?—”
“I know. I’m a fucking whore. What you should know is that I’ve seen the truth. It’s in your eyes when you’re deep inside of me...It’s on your face when you come...And, it’s in the way that you protect me even when you would rather let someone hurt me.”
“Ekaterina—”
“No! I just want you to know that despite you thinking of me as nothing more than some whore you’re stuck with, I know that you want me even more because of it, regardless of whatever you've told yourself to the contrary.”
“You killed my brother. You accused him of rape. What?—”
“Because he did try to rape me. I thought you understood that. I thought you believed me. I was wrong about that, but I'm not wrong about you.”
Actually, you have everything all wrong. Maybe not then, but you do now.
“You're the one who's wrong.”
“Not about you. You want me. I see it...feel it...know it...and it eats away at you because you do love me despite everything you’ve always hated me for.”
I closed my eyes because she did have a point.
Only, she wouldn’t let me get two words out edgewise, so I could neither confirm nor deny what she was saying.
I couldn’t even tell her that I had done some looking into things I should’ve looked into before.
Things that I now knew were the truth, and not just because they were written.
Documents and confessions could be forged or falsified.
It was why I’d needed to interview several of the kids at that party that night, and they all exonerated Ekaterina once I did.
I ripped my hand away from her throat. “Let’s continue this inside.”
“Whatever,” she said flippantly as she hurried out of the car as soon as I unlocked her door. I followed her inside, and had no sooner set my things down when she walked over to the window. “There really isn’t anything more to say.”
“How in the hell can you fix your mouth to say that?” I asked as I came up behind her.
She flinched without me even touching her.
Her anger was rolling off her in waves, and it only made me harder.
I hadn’t fucked her since the miscarriage, but the doctor did give her the all clear this afternoon.
I knew where this dance was headed, so as I went to touch her, she tried to pull away, but I was too fast and too strong for her.
After pinning her against the heavy paned glass, I heard a moan escape as well as a few incoherent words I knew were likely curses.
“You see those things when we fuck because they’re true.
For as much hell as you put me through, being inside of you is Heaven.
There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, but it’s not because you’re some damn whore.
My speed dial list is full of them. You’re my wife.
You’re going to be the mother of my child one day.
It’s only when my dick is inside of you, puisín, that you’re my filthy whore.
It’s the only place you need to be one.”
“Kingston,” she said as I spun her around.
I didn’t want to hear what came next, so I fused my mouth to hers. My hand returned to her throat as I held her in place, and I drank from her lips. I could barely get my tongue past them, but the second they parted just a smidgen more, I thrust it inside, eliciting a moan from her.
Her dainty hands clutched my wrist as she tried to remove my hand, but I’d been dreaming of being with her again over the last several days. It’d been all I could think about, and I didn’t know if I could stop touching her now. But I would. Just not now.
I continued to kiss her, and eventually she relaxed in my arms and began to return the kiss.
I slid my tongue along hers, twisting and tangling them together, all while pressing her back harder into the glass.
The things she fucking did to me. Ekaterina was driving me fucking crazy, and it was already a short route to begin with.