Chapter Thirty-Seven
Livia
“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I wish I had never met you. And if I’m pregnant, and I hope to god I’m not, I will—”
“Don’t,” Deacon says softly but darkly.
“If I’m pregnant, and I hope to god I’m not,” I continue clearly and precisely. “I will throw myself off a balcony.” I mean every word I say. I can’t have a part of them inside me. I can’t even live anymore. I shouldn’t be alive. Faith should be alive.
“I’m leaving, and if you try to stop me, you’re going to have to kill me.”
I can’t say here. I can’t leave Faith alone in a strange place. I have to go and find her. She should be with me.
I wipe my tears and strengthen my resolve. I’m going to hand myself over to Kirill Yenin and then I’m going to kill him. Then I’m going to bring Faith home, and if I don’t get a chance to do that, then I don’t want to be alive.
“You’re not leaving this house, Livia.”
“I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to see you. I want nothing to do with you. Don’t you understand? I never want you to touch me ever again. So let me leave.”
“No.”
“Then you’ll have to kill me.”
“Your safety is the only thing in this whole fucking world that matters to us. You are not leaving this house.” Deacon’s words are as resolute as mine. Except it wasn’t his cousin who was brutally attacked and violated while she was completely helpless and now lifeless.
It should have been me.
I shouldn’t have tried to prove my mom was right about The Three Bears fairytale. I should have just left it in the attic, where Mrs. Rosely had stored it for me. I wouldn’t have been at the cottage. They wouldn’t have found me, and instead, I would do my daughterly duty like I always planned just for a scrap of affection from my father. I would have married the man he picked for me blindly because I’m pathetic that way. And Faith would have been safe. She would be alive. She would be smiling her beautiful smile.
It’s no one’s fault but my own. I turn toward the door, determined to leave this place and walk straight into Kirill Yenin’s domain.
But I don’t get very far. Callen scoops me up and carries me over his shoulder back up to the third-floor bedroom. No amount of kicking or screaming and banging my fists against his back—no matter how hard I sink my teeth into his flesh and scratch his face—he doesn’t react; he doesn’t stop. He’s stone. But they don’t get not to feel what I’m feeling. They don’t get to hide behind their stoicism because they’re better crafted at it.
I want them to feel what I’m feeling.
He deposits me in the bedroom. I attack him again, but all he does is hold me against his strong body. I revolt against the comfort I find there in his arms and push away immediately.
“We’re sorry, Livia,” he says quietly, then leaves. The door locks before I get to it. I bang on the wood with both my fists, over and over and over.
“Please let me out. I can’t leave her there. Please. Please…. I can’t leave her body there…”
Minutes pass by, maybe hours. And then I do it one last time before my energy is completely zapped. I’m exhausted; my throat is raw from my screaming, and it got me nothing and nowhere. For the first time, I truly feel like a prisoner here. The windows seem to be electronically shut. There’s no way out of this for me.
I rip the dress off, scratching off my skin as I do and pulling my hair in frustration. I can’t take it anymore. I crumble to the floor, naked, and cry until I’m going to pass out.
Faith…
I relive everything that was done to her. I see Kirill Yenin’s face and how he said everything he did to Faith was meant for me.
The punches and kicks. The gun. The cane. Her lifeless body lying on an old, scarred table. The laughter of the men who cheered Yenin on.
I keep those thoughts in my mind. I don’t get to be exempt from them. I need to keep rethinking them until I feel what it”s like to be beaten that way. To be raped with a gun and a cane. If I think it long and hard enough, maybe I can start to wear Faith’s bruises, and maybe my body will bear the damage Yenin did to her. Maybe I’ll become her ghost.
I lift myself off the floor and step into the shower cubicle. I turn on the hot water and force myself to stand under the spray, but I can’t even manage that, whereas Faith experienced the worst things that can be done to a woman.
I sink to the floor, bring my knees up to my chest, and wrap my arms around my legs. I can’t cry anymore, and now it’s my anger and my frustration at being a captive in their house that destroy me. They’re keeping me from holding Faith’s hand one last time. They’re stopping me from brushing her hair back out of her face, just like I did with my mom when she fell to her death.
I need to tell Faith I love her. She’s all I had and now I have no one.
I eventually step out of the shower, and with my hair still wet, I find track pants and a hoodie in the closet and put them on. Then I lie on the bed.
I need to find a way to escape. And this time, I’m going to do it. Nothing is keeping me here anymore. They’re the same as Kirill Yenin. They belong in the same world. They all murdered Faith.
My phone starts to beep and buzz with calls and messages. Through my swollen-cried eyes, I see messages from the girls at FFF. They know what happened to Faith because of Demi’s family and her ties to the mafia.
I read the messages as they come up. They’re worried about me. They want to know if I’m okay. They’re sorry about Faith. I don’t have the energy to reply, but I keep reading them even as they say they understand; they’re here for me whenever I need them. Demi sends me a longer message, and I skim through it.
I’m so sorry, Livia. Yenin was only able to do what he did because he got a ‘no harm’ protection order last night. The Global Underground Six secretly voted for it, keeping the Ursids in the dark.
He finally swayed and threatened his way into the Mexican Cartel and the Bratva. That means he has more votes than the Ursid Syndicate, who initially had the majority. That’s how the Global Underground Six works. It’s what Yenin wanted all along. They’re powerless to do anything about it now, Livia, and if they do, they will lose their seat at the table, and all their territories will be seized. Kirill Yenin is now untouchable. And I”m petrified that they won”t be able to protect you from him anymore.
I turn around and leave my phone on the other side of the bed.