Chapter 29 Katarina
KATARINA
The night felt never-ending. The only blip in my solitude was the doctor visiting me again and injecting me while I struggled to wake up from my half-slumber. After that shot, I fell into a deep, drugged sleep.
I woke up with the man who told me his name was Ivan leaning over me, shaking me hard enough to rattle my teeth. Where was I? Why was I here in this unfamiliar house?
“Move it. We’re late.”
He yanked me up by the arm so hard something tore in my shoulder, making me cry out. Ivan ignored my sound of pain. I struggled to my feet as he pulled a moth-eaten white lace dress from the huge, dark-wood wardrobe at one end of the room.
“Wear this.”
I looked distrustfully at the dress.
“Now!” he shouted roughly, sending my nerves on high alert. He pounded a fist against the door on his way out. “Put it on now. If not, I’ll put it on for you and I won’t be gentle.”
As soon as he left, I grabbed the dress.
I didn’t know exactly why I was sure, but I believed his threat.
Tears dripped down my cheeks as I took off my clothes and tugged the old dress over my head.
It smelled like mothballs. The lace was scratchy and the sleeves restrictive.
I saw myself in the mirror and glanced away.
I resembled a sacrificial virgin in the old-fashioned dress, and having met the man who was waiting for me, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to think I could be.
The door banged open, and the same man appeared. Someone lurked behind him in the hallway in a white lab coat. A doctor? He had a syringe in his hand, and I instinctively backed up, but he advanced too quickly.
The needle burned like a wasp sting as it went into my thrashing arm.
“You’re ready? Let’s go.” Ivan turned away, expecting me to follow.
I did, slowly. “Where are we going?” I asked.
We left the small apartment and stepped out onto a dingy, cold landing.
“Church.”
I was shivering by the time I got out of the car beside a small church, tucked away down a quiet street. Ivan manhandled me out of the back seat and crouched beside the driver-side window.
“Go and get it over with.” The doctor sat at the wheel.
“You don’t want to come and see? Three fucking years I’ve been waiting for this. It had better be worth it.”
The doctor nodded at me. “It’ll be worth it. Trust me. I’ll see you later.”
“Come on, lazybones, let’s go to a wedding,” Ivan said.
Now the odd, Gothic-looking lacy dress made sense. Though wearing a white lace dress to another woman’s wedding felt tacky.
Ivan smirked at me, and there was nothing tender or caring about the expression.
He seemed full of sadistic energy. I wondered what it must feel like to be so energetic.
I could barely keep my head up. I wobbled after him, stopping once to retch.
I felt so sick. Ivan barely gave me a second to recover, tugging me along and muttering about how disgusting I was.
Inside the church was quiet and still. I swayed on the spot, and a priest approached. There was no one else there. Were we the first to arrive?
“This is her?” The priest eyed me doubtfully.
Ivan nodded.
“Okay, well, let’s get started.” The priest sounded resigned. He kept glancing around nervously like he was doing something he shouldn’t be.
He led us to a small dais and faced us.
“What’s happening?” I asked Ivan.
He smirked. “We’re finally getting married. I’ve waited fucking ages for this, so don’t ruin it.”
“Married?” Something inside me told me this was wrong. I had to fight. I had to stop it. But my muscles refused to move, and that crippling apathy washed over me.
What was the point? I could run, but where? I didn’t know where I was or where to go. I had no numbers or even names of friends in my head.
I’d never been more alone.
He led me through the empty church, past the deserted pews to the altar, which was positioned under a gigantic wooden cross.
The priest turned to us and nodded meaningfully.
My apparent fiancé passed him a thick envelope of cash.
“Dearly beloved, we are here today to join Ivan Markovic and, um . . .”
The priest looked at me, and I stared blankly at him.
“Katarina Dmitrova,” Ivan supplied.
“ . . . Katarina Dmitrova together in holy matrimony.”
I felt sick. I could barely stand up. I was hot and cold, like I had a fever coming on. I clutched at Ivan’s arm to stay standing. Something burned against my chest, and I dug around for it in the neckline of the lacy dress.
I pulled it free as the priest went through his lines.
It was a chain. The kind someone in the military might wear. It had a name on it. I peered closely at it, Ivan and the priest not even noticing that I wasn’t listening. I’d seen it before. I was sure. It felt familiar.
“Then, in the power vested in me by—”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Something hard knocked on the heavy old wood door of the chapel, the sound echoing throughout the room.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The sound seemed to shake the entire place. It felt for a moment like it was coming from underneath the stone floor. Like someone was knocking from the very underworld itself.
Then, someone cleared their throat.
“I think you’ve missed a section, Father.” The voice was deep and rich, arrogant, and something else—furious. Yes, there was fury in the tone.
It weakened my knees.
The priest stared into the darkness beyond the nave. “Who dares to interrupt a wedding?”
Footsteps sounded. Someone walked across the stone floor somewhere, but there were too many shadowy corners to see where he was coming from. The acoustics of the church made the voice echo around.
“You missed the section where you ask if anyone objects to this marriage.”
“Who the fuck is there?” Ivan demanded, and drew something from behind his jacket.
A gun.
The sight of it was like a punch to the gut. I tried to step back, but he kept me close.
“Go ahead and do the ceremony properly, Father. We’ll all wait,” the voice continued.
Ivan peered into the murkiness and took a step in that direction, apparently going to investigate who was speaking.
Then there was a strange sound, like a zipper being drawn quickly closed, and a chunk of stone flew out of the pillar beside Ivan’s head, gouged out by a bullet.
I stared.
The priest cried out, covering his head and calling for God.
“I said . . . do the ceremony properly, Father, I won’t ask again,” the voice continued.
“Does anyone here object to this union? If so, speak now or forever hold your peace.” The priest’s voice trembled.
“I’m so glad you asked.” The man stepped out into the light, so much closer than he’d seemed.
He was dressed like a priest, but his clothes were burned and torn. He was tall and broad, so fucking broad, he looked like he could hold hell up with the strength of those shoulders. Bandages covered his hands but didn’t seem to have impeded his aim.
He leaned against a pillar and met my gaze. His midnight eyes were ringed with full lashes. His lower face was bearded, and for a second I could feel the scrape of that beard against my chin, but then the memory was gone. He had a gun at his side, fitted with a silencer.
“I object and I will not hold my peace.”
Ivan pointed his gun at the newcomer. I could feel his hand shaking beside my face. The demon of a man laughed like it was a joke. Ivan seemed to think better of it and brought his gun to my head, pressing it into my temple.
“Stay back, or she dies.”
The man sighed and used the tip of his weapon to scratch his temple. It was such a nonchalant move. He was a man used to dealing in death. None of this fazed him.
“How predictable,” he drawled. Then he focused on me. “I would tell you how much it pisses me off when people threaten to break my things . . . but you’re not going to live long enough to make it worth the energy. You’re already food for the worms.”
“Because?” Ivan demanded. “We’ve never even met!”
“So? I’ve killed a lot of people I’ve never even met . . . You’re actually quite special, because today I’ll kill you for entirely personal reasons.”
Ivan gripped me closer. “What personal reasons?”
The man pointed the gun at the priest, who was trying to creep away.
He whistled. “Oi, Father, I can’t let you go now that I know you’re willing to wed an unwilling, drugged-up woman to whoever comes along and pays you off. I’m sorry. I’ll see you down there later, okay?”
“Down where?” the priest mumbled.
“Hell. Wait for me.” Then a muffled pop sounded.
The priest fell to the floor before the sound had even finished.
Ivan roared with fear and outrage. “Man, what’s your fucking problem?”
“You are. You and men like you. The ones who think women and children in our world are just chess pieces to maneuver where you need them. You’re my fucking problem. Add to that the fact that you’ve touched that which is mine, and I’m afraid your fate is decided.”
“What’s yours?” Ivan demanded. “Her?” He shook me and then pushed me a few steps away.
I stumbled into the altar.
The newcomer chuckled. “Yes, her. My little stray. My woman, soon-to-be wife, and future mother of my kids. It's not your desire to marry her that sealed your fate. It’s that you even glanced her way. That you thought yourself worthy of touching her—oh, and that you tried to take one of my firsts.” He stared at me.
“I’ll be her first husband, and her last.”
Ivan went to protest, to back up, his gun waving wildly, and a shot sounded.
Only seconds later another shot zipped from somewhere, and Ivan fell.
The smell of something burning and the coppery scent of blood filled the air.
Around me, the bodies lay, both dead as fucking doornails, matching bullets between the eyes. Executed with perfect ease.
I was frozen with terror as the newcomer walked toward me. He wrapped an arm around me just before I fell over, and he hauled me to his chest.
“I’m sorry I’m late, micetta,” he murmured, his gaze moving across my face.
It had blood on it; I could feel it. A delicate spray.
“Are you going to kill me?” I heard myself ask through numb lips.
“Kill you?” he repeated, a frown furrowing between his eyebrows.
He ran his attention over my face, checking for wounds, perhaps, or deciding how he would end me. Something that looked like worry worked across those marble, statue-worthy features, and he slowly shook his head.
“No, angel, I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to marry you, and keep you . . . till death do us part.”
I stared at the man who seemed more devil than human and lost the battle.
Darkness swooped over me like a veil, and I fell gratefully into that sweet oblivion.