Chapter Sixteen
Kirill
She pushes me away and stares at me with a mutinous gaze.
“It can wait. Let’s get you out of here first, Ptichka .” I reach for her once more, but she pulls away yet again.
“It cannot wait,” she says. “We’re talking. Now.”
What the fuck is wrong with her?
I’ve just torn through a nest of vipers to get to her, and now she’s recoiling from me like I’m a snake.
I’ve been shot at, betrayed, and had my world turned upside down, but none of that matters right now.
What matters is that she’s safe. And yet here she is, glaring at me like I’m some sort of monster.
Maybe because that’s what you are, pridurok.
“What’s going on?” I advance a step. She’s on her feet and backing away as I move closer. “Come here. Let’s go home.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you! Not until you tell me the truth about what you did to my family.” Her dark eyes narrow into slits, and for a moment, she looks like a wild animal cornered.
For fuck’s sake!
What is she talking about?
“Your family?” I growl, my patience fraying thinner by the second. “I had nothing to do with your father’s death. You were there. You saw it was Petrov’s men.” I really wish she just obeyed. Every minute we waste here is a minute more for the Petrov gang to regroup. We are wasting time.
“I’m not talking about my father, Kirill.”
My brows pull together. “Then what the fuck are you talking about?”
“What the fuck do you think?” She hisses. “I’m talking about my mother!”
Blyad.
Her mother. I should have known this day would come. Except I was hoping to talk about this in our bedroom, and not in a room full of corpses.
“I never harmed your mother.” I keep my voice gentle despite a sense of urgency building in me. I really want to get the fuck out of here and deal with Petrov’s guys.
“Really? Because your wife seems to think otherwise.” She spits out the word “wife” like it leaves a bad taste in her mouth. It probably does. “She had pretty solid evidence too!”
Evidence?
The world stops spinning for a second. The following second, a burning rage is coursing through my veins like gasoline on fire. My hands clench into fists at my sides, barely restraining myself from going after Zoya and getting her out of my life once and for all.
That bitch!
How fucking dare she?
“Zoya, huh?” The word tastes vile. “What the fuck did she tell you?”
“She told me enough,” she snaps, still backing away from me. I hate that she wants to put distance between us when I’ve just spent the past few hours trying to keep her close. I need to take a few deep breaths to keep my fury at bay.
“Ptichka.” I cock my head, keeping my voice even. “If you are going to convict me, the least you could do is tell me what she said.”
Tiana stops abruptly as she bumps into the wall behind her. Her eyes dart around before she continues, “I’m not convicting you, Kirill. But I need to know the truth. Did you-,” her voice breaks, “did you kill my mother?”
I stop in my tracks as I make sense of her words.
Jesus Christ.
What the fuck did that bitch tell her?
“I did not kill your mother.” With the adrenaline coursing through me, it takes every inch of my will to keep my voice even. I want to snap that bitch in half for deceiving Tiana like this.
“Really?” She hisses. “Because the FBI transcript she showed me says otherwise. What the fuck do you think made me leave?”
An FBI transcript?
Jesus.
I stare at Tiana, trying to control my blood pressure as I put the puzzlepieces together.
I already knew that Zoya was the one behind Tiana’s disappearance, but I didn’t know what she told Tiana that made her leave.
First, she sold out to that fucker Petrov.
Then she convinced Tiana that I killed her mother.
Then she lured her out of the building so that Petrov’s men could kidnap her and use her against me.
Chert voz’mi!
When I get my hands on that bitch…
The woman is a snake. Worse than that. Her betrayal cuts deeper than I have ever imagined. But that doesn’t change the fact that Tiana believed her. She thinks I killed her mother.
“Zoya lied to you,” I growl through gritted teeth. “I never laid a hand on your mother. Didn’t it ever occur to you that she can forge the file and-”
“Enough of the lies!” Tiana snaps. “I don’t fucking care if the file is forged, Kirill!” Her last words come out as a small sob, and despite my anger, my heart clenches. “Tell me the truth! Did you kill my mother?”
“ Ptichka , it’s not that simple-,”
“The truth!” She cuts me off again. “Now.”
Blyad.
I’m not getting out of this until I tell her the story, that much is clear. My blood is still boiling as I’m thinking of Zoya and her hand in all of this. The woman has interfered in my world for the last fucking time.
“Sit down,” I tell Tiana.
She shakes her head. “No! I’m done with jumping every time you snap your fingers!” Her jaw juts out. “Start talking!”
Impossible goddamned woman. Even after all she’s been through, she still gives me an attitude. I stand in front of her and fold my arms over my chest.
“Fine,” I snap. I’m battered, bleeding, and my patience is strung thin. “I never killed your mother,” I say, forcing myself to keep my temper in check.
“Yeah, right. And I’m just supposed to take your word for that?”
“Yes.” I nod. “You are my woman. You should take my word above all else.”
“Oh really?” she scoffs. “Firstly, that’s the most arrogant thing I’ve ever heard. And secondly, who says that I’m your woman?”
“I do.” I set my jaw. “But that is not what we are discussing right now. You want answers.”
“Yes!” She glares at me, folding her arms across her chest in a mirror of my posture. It draws my attention to how her dress has been hastily pulled closed. I can still see the crosshatching on her skin from where she was cut.
I should have taken longer to kill those fuckers.
“Are you going to tell me, or what?” She’s still glaring at me. In spite of her clothing being torn and her skin splattered with blood, she’s the picture of defiance.
“I did not kill your mother,” I say again. I loom over her, even though I’m pretty sure that I’m not intimidating her.
“You said that already. And?”
“I was told to target your father,” I acknowledge, and lock my eyes with hers.
“My employer needed to keep him at bay. I decided it would be easier to manage him if I threatened those he loved. To use them as leverage.” I could say that it wasn’t my finest hour, but that wouldn’t be true – I’ve done worse.
“Like my mother?” She scowls at me. “You bastard! I-”
“I did not kill her!” I unfold my arms and rake a hand through my hair. “I had planned to get into your property, plant cameras, and take pictures of her going about her daily life. To show your father that I had been there and how vulnerable she was. But when I got there, she was already gone.”
“Gone?” Tiana frowns at me.
“Gone.” I shrug. “I confronted your father, and he was convinced that she was dead.”
Tiana’s mouth drops open. “And you believed him?”
“No. I knew he was lying, so I searched for her. But I found nothing. She had simply vanished. When I spoke to my employer, I told him that it had been taken care of because it had. She was gone. And I had found a way to control your father regardless.”
“That makes no sense.” She rubs her forehead, looking defeated.
“It was not my obligation to make sense of things. I was there to do a job.”
“Why should I believe you?” she asks. “You’ve lied to me, manipulated me, and used me. How can I trust you now?”
“Because your mother is alive.”
Tiana shoots upright, rising straight off the chair. Her eyes go wide and a strangled gasp escapes her lips. The blood drains from her face in an instant, as she shakes her head in disbelief.
“What?!” she blurts. “She- She- What?” She’s shaking her head, her eyes filled with tears. “How could you know that?”
“Because I found her,” I say simply.
“Don’t you fucking lie to me, you bastard!” Her chest heaves as she stares at me with eyes full of tears.
“I’m not, Ptichka. ” I keep my eyes locked with hers. “I know this is important to you. So, I found her.” I purse my lips. Admitting this feels like a weakness, but it’s true. Her happiness warms some strange part of me that I thought was long dead.
Her eyes are still locked with mine, wide and incredulous. She shakes her head again, then runs both her hands through her hair in a gesture of agitation. I say nothing. Finally, she drops her hands, her arms hanging limply at her sides.
“I need proof.”
“I understand.” It doesn’t surprise me. I would demand the same thing.
“I want to see her!” Her words come quickly, her hands fluttering together.
“Right.” Again, it doesn’t surprise me. She looks around wildly as if I have her mother on call somewhere.
Instead, I reach into my jacket pocket and extract my phone.
The thing has taken several knocks, and the screen is cracked, but it powers to life when I swipe the screen.
Pulling up an app, I hand the device to her. She stares at it for a long moment.
“Mom.” She finally breathes the word out, her throat working as she looks at a photo taken of her mother by one of Dima’s investigators.
“Keep swiping. There’s more.” I watch her face switch through a myriad of expressions; confusion, sorrow, joy, and nostalgia. More tears well, and catch on her lower lashes before tumbling down her cheek. She wipes the streak of tears away with the back of her hand before looking back up at me.
“It’s her,” she whispers. “It’s really her. I remember her… her smile. Her eyes. It’s her. My mother is alive.”