Chapter 16 #2
Katarina rolls her bulging eyes “He doesn’t know. And believe it or not, I want it to stay that way.”
“Then why did he attack Rory?” I’m genuinely confused.
“Haven’t you connected the dots yet?”
As Katarina’s smirk widens into a reptilian grin, I do just that. Rory’s accident was a nudge to keep me in line so I remain faithful to my fiancée. A warning that couldn’t have come from Vasili because he doesn’t know there’s a threat. “Are you fucking serious?” I growl. “It was you?”
“I have my own resources, people who are wholly unconnected to my uncle.”
My pulse shoots up. Even for Katarina, this is beyond fucked up. “Who?”
Her face turns puce. “Someone who would…” she rasps. “Take great exception to you squeezing my throat right now.”
My eyes lock with hers. I don’t blink. My focus is lethal and sharp. She’s just slipped up. “Some-one,” I repeat, emphasizing the singular. Katarina has a person. “Would that be the same someone who sent you a very special gift to my office?”
She scowls. “Let. Me. Go.”
As much as I hate Katarina at this moment, I don’t take as much pleasure in cutting off her airway as I’d like. I release my grip, but prod her side with the barrel of my gun. I’m still a threat, and that fragile thread connecting me to my soul and my sanity is close to snapping.
Katarina coughs politely to clear her throat as if my fingers around her neck had been a minor nuisance. “I can’t have you compromising our position by fucking around, Duke. I thought I made myself clear when you sneaked off to Brimstage with her.”
If the reminder of how she’d threatened Grace’s safety is meant to scare me, it doesn’t work. “But you didn’t follow through with the threat, did you?” I say, unpicking her strategy. “You don’t want Vasili to know about Grace. You’re still worried he’ll recall you back to Russia.”
“We both have a vested interest in keeping the ruse going, I know that,” she says with a shrug.
My jaw tics. She’s been bred to coerce and manipulate, and she fucking enjoys it. “I don’t know how I ever saw you as a victim. You really are a heartless bitch,” I say, my trigger finger tensing.
“I’m a survivor. One who knows the game better than you.”
“You think so?”
“Consider today tough love, Duke.”
“Oh, I’ve learned my lesson,” I say as my blood runs cold. “I’m a puppet with two puppet masters. If I make a wrong move, my family receives the punishment. You want me to believe the only way to protect them is to let you pull my strings.”
“It’s not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of fact,” she insists. “The only way we can guarantee Fitz’s safety is to play along until the day we’re meant to bind our two families together.”
Katarina’s words wash over me and an eerie calm descends. There is another way.
“My uncle agreed to return your brother in time for the wedding,” Katarina continues, oblivious to the puppet strings I’m slicing through in my mind. Snip. Snip. One by one. “He’s a man of his word and as long as you don’t give him reason to doubt your word, he’ll keep to that promise.”
I feel at peace as I focus on that one remaining thread. The one binding me to the pain and suffering I feel as well as the pain I’ve caused. I’m ready.
“And what about your word, kitten?” I ask, more from curiosity than concern. “You haven’t exactly been cooperating with the Griffins. Why should I believe you’ll disappear before we exchange vows? We could have ended this weeks ago by bringing the wedding forward, along with Fitz’s release.”
“I’ve told you before. I have my reasons.”
“And I’m starting to think those reasons are to marry me and stay married. That’s why you’re so upset that I’m showing an interest in another woman.” If I wasn’t so numb, I’d be raging with anger.
“Jesus, you do have a high opinion of yourself,” Katarina says, laughing despite the gun scraping against her ribcage. “If I have to call you husband, shoot me now.”
It’s my turn to laugh, but my laugh is hollow. “Oh, kitten, I’m tempted.”
It takes just a second to wipe the smile from Katarina’s face as I remove the gun from her side and take a step back. “Duke, what are you doing?” she asks, wide-eyed as I point the weapon at my head.
It’s the first time I’ve seen anything close to an unguarded reaction from Katarina, and it’s strangely satisfying. There is a human beneath the mask, even if her dismay is fueled by self-preservation.
“I can’t trust that you or Vasili will keep any of your promises. Honor means nothing to people without conscience,” I say as the gun barrel kisses my temple. “As I see it, I’m the reason the people I care about are at risk. Remove me from the equation, and what do you have? Fuck. All.”
Katarina cocks her head, scrutinizing my features for the slightest hint that this is some bluff. She blinks a couple of times as she tugs the edges of her silk robe together. “You’re serious.” It’s not a question.
My grip on the trigger is firm and steady. “Katarina, ending it now would be a blessed relief.”
At first, I assume it’s a trick of the light, but Katarina’s eyes have gone glassy. “You can’t do this… Please, Duke. Think… Think about your family.”
“I am.”
Only today, my sister had wished me dead. I know she didn’t mean it, and I hope she knows she didn’t say anything I hadn’t thought myself. I would have traded my life freely for Ewan’s, but there wasn’t a deal to be made with the devil back then. There is now.
I can’t save Ewan but I can save Fitz. I can protect Rory, and Calder, and Meri. I can protect Grace. They’ll hurt, but Max knows enough to explain that I do this for them, not because of them. Shit. Max… He’s going to be so pissed with me.
“Listen to me,” Katarina says, breaking into my thoughts.
“Too late.”
Her eyes widen as her gaze flicks to my tensing trigger finger. “No! You can’t do this to me!”
Her outburst is so on point that I bark out a laugh. “In what fucked up world do you think you’d ever factor into my decision?”
“Because you’re a version of me I don’t ever want to face!
” she cries out. Her voice scratches in her throat when she adds, “We’re not that different, you and I.
We set ourselves up as protectors, we step in front of the bullets, we take the punches and we fool ourselves into thinking we’re indestructible.
” A single, heavy tear rolls down the side of her face.
“And then we wake up one morning and discover we’re just as powerless as the next person. ”
I watch the tear as it drops onto her silk robe, leaving a dark splotch on the light blue fabric. Her words ring true, but her actions speak a different language. “You? A protector?” I scoff. “You weren’t much of a protector when you had someone run Rory off the road.”
She closes her eyes briefly. “Because that’s where we differ.
I walked away from my ‘car crash,’ Duke,” she says, using air quotes.
“And I vowed never to set myself up for that kind of failure again. These days, I protect myself first and foremost. Always. You, on the other hand…” She points a finger towards my chest. “You’re still desperate to be the fucking hero. ”
I’m tempted to ask more about Katarina’s past life, but I’m in no mood to give her the chance to cleanse her soul.
“This isn’t selfless,” I correct her. “You’ve made it abundantly clear there are multiple threats hanging over the people I love, and I couldn’t survive seeing them hurt.
I’m not a hero, I’m a coward. This…” I tap the gun against my head.
“It’s the only way I can guarantee everyone’s safety. ”
“I’m sorry!” Katarina pleads, closing the distance between us with one step.
My grip on the gun slips. Damn it, my hands are clammy. The longer I put this off…
“I fucked up and I’m sorry,” Katarina continues quickly, “but you have to stay the course. You can’t be this fucking selfish!”
“Why not? You are!”
“Because what you’re facing now has been my entire fucking life!” She glowers at me. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Poor Duke had to put his plans on hold for a few weeks before he gets to pick up his life and do whatever the fuck he wants! Boo-fucking-hoo! Well, what about me?”
She shoves me hard against my chest and as I stumble back, I stretch out my arms to balance myself.
“All my life, I’ve been moved from pillar to post at my uncle’s whim,” she continues.
“And the Griffins are about to do the same. Ash asked me once what I wanted out of life, and do you know something?” She casts her gaze down, briefly hiding the pain that skitters across those fathomless brown eyes.
“These last few months have been as close as I’ve come to getting that. Here.”
When she looks up, I raise an eyebrow. Please, god, the last thing I need right now is for her to say she’s been hiding feelings for me.
Katarina smirks at my reaction and the vulnerability I’d glimpsed disappears back behind the masks she wears. “I didn’t mean you, asshole,” she clarifies. “I meant being settled in one place and, up until recently, not having to worry about what fresh horrors my uncle has imagined for me.”
“But you’d get the same security if you just accepted the new life on offer,” I challenge.
She strokes a hand down my arm, following my sleeve to my shirt cuff, my wrist, my hand. She pulls the gun from my grasp. “Not without sacrifice.”
There’s something in her tone that feels familiar. A sacrifice that feels familiar. “You’d be giving up your person.”
She tsks at me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a person.”
I blow out a breath. “Neither do I now.”
“Yes, you do. You said there were threats to the people you loved. Don’t try to deny you didn’t include Grace in that number.”
She’s very much included. Which means I do love her. For all the good that love serves.
“She isn’t mine if she refuses to be,” I clarify. “And after that little act we put on in my office, that’s exactly what she’s doing.” I’d asked Ed to send Grace a meeting request for Monday at our usual time. She hasn’t accepted.
“We can fix that.”
“You can keep the fuck away from her.” I should feel a resurgence of my anger, but I’m too emotionally drained to feel much at all. “And there’s no point fixing anything if we’re back at square one.”
“There are no backwards steps in this game. Plans can be adapted,” she says cryptically. “I hadn’t appreciated the importance of Grace, or the sacrifice I was asking you to make. If she’s what you need to keep going, we’ll find a workaround.”
“I won’t put her at risk,” I insist. “If you found out how Grace was connected to me, so can your uncle.” I tilt my head to the side. “How did you find out?”
“We might have reached a new understanding, but I’m not giving away all my secrets. Let’s just say I’m good at getting what I want.”
She taps the barrel of the gun against my chest. It’s a case in point. How the hell did she disarm me without me consciously giving up my weapon? Maybe one day I’ll be grateful she did, but there’s a good chance all Katarina’s given me is an extension of my purgatory.
“The only thing I need your help with, Katarina, is arranging another check in with Fitz.”
“Easily done,” she says. “We can use the trauma of Rory’s accident to explain why you were desperate to get to me. You needed reassurance that Fitz was still safe and you took out your fear and frustration on poor Danyl.”
It’s a good reminder of how skilled Katarina is at manipulating the narrative. I still can’t trust her, but maybe we can work with instead of against each other. “Speaking of Danyl, do not ask me to apologize. And tell that pair of asswipes there’ll be no more body searches.”
“Anything else to put your mind at rest?” she asks as she weighs the gun in her hand.
“As long as my people don’t get hurt, we’re good.”
Katarina blows out a long breath, then moves close enough to drop her forehead to my chest. I’m too stunned to push her away.
“I am sorry about Rory,” she says. “It was a shitty move and I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”
“Good, because you’re not getting it.”
She lifts her gaze and her eyes dance with mischief. “As glacial as ever,” she observes, tapping my tensed pecs. “That’s the Duke we need if we’re going to survive the next few weeks.”