Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Lily
I didn’t know how long I had been home, because the days and nights just blurred together. I spent most of it sleeping, and when I wasn’t sleeping, I was being sick. My body had decided now was the time for morning sickness to kick in.
Not that it really mattered, Daniil wouldn’t let me do anything anyway.
Anytime I tried to, he got this worried look in his eyes and fussed around me like a mother hen.
It would have been endearing, but not going anywhere or doing anything gave me more time with my memories, and that was a dangerous place to go.
They haunted my dreams. I didn’t need them to haunt my waking hours as well. The only highlight of my day was having movie time with Timothy. He was officially the light of my life now. He was my little anchor to reality because if he could be strong, then so could I.
“Lil-ee.”
I turned my head towards him. He always said my name like that when he was trying to get my attention, and I was miles away in my head.
Twisting under the heavy blanket, I ruffled his hair and was rewarded by a bright smile.
“What’s up, little man?” I asked, and his smile grew.
It made him look like his father. It also made me wonder what our child would look like.
Would he or she have Daniil’s dazzling smile? Maybe they would have my red hair.
I couldn’t wait to find out. Without meaning to, I caressed my stomach. There was just the smallest of bumps now. It wasn’t noticeable by anyone else, but I could feel it.
“I’m tired.”
“Ok. Shall I turn the movie off so we can go to sleep?” This wasn’t the first time he’d gotten sleepy early and asked to finish the movie another night.
He chewed on his lip. “Would you be ok if I slept in my own room tonight?” His young but too-wise eyes swept over my face, almost like he was gauging my reaction.
“I don’t have to,” he added quickly. “I don’t want you to be afraid. I can sleep in here and protect you when Papa isn’t here.”
I stared at him with my mouth open, and it hit me all in a rush. I’d thought I was the one helping him get over what had happened to us. I wanted to protect him and make him feel safe, and here he was admitting he was just here because he wanted me to feel safe.
He was way more like Daniil than I had ever thought.
Smiling down at him, I bent and pressed my lips to his ruffled hair. “Of course, I’ll be ok. Would you like me to help you brush your teeth and tuck you in?” He nodded. So that’s what we did.
He even asked if I could leave before he fell asleep. Which, of course, I did, but that left me with nothing to do but climb back into my cold bed and switch on the TV.
Loneliness bit at me. Timothy was right. I needed him more than he needed me. Biting back a sigh, I switched on the news, not because I wanted to know what was going on in the world, but because I needed to. I felt so disjointed, so out of touch with everything that was happening in the real world.
And that was my fault because it was safe here within the four walls of my beautiful bedroom, where I had a man who doted on my every need and a little boy who realized I was lonely and scared.
It was time to face up to things. And step one of that was to catch up on things going on in the world. The first story was something to do with international politics, and I got so bored that I was drifting off by the time the second story came on.
My eyes snapped open. Gluing themselves to the screen. They kept flashing between a building that looked so familiar. An old art deco theater and the ruins it was now. I knew that building, or at least, I had seen it before it had become a smoldering pile of brick and ash.
A massive fire had ripped through a private screening, killing some of the country’s richest and most influential people. It was a tragedy and still under investigation.
Letting the thick quilt fall to my lap, I leaned forward, eyeing it. It looked familiar because I had been there before. Sure, when they had taken me inside, I had been knocked out, but Daniil had carried me from that place.
It was the same theater that I’d been kept prisoner in and almost auctioned off.
And now it was nothing but rubble. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
I didn’t believe that all those people, the very people who had wanted to buy and hurt me and Timothy, had died by some kind of accident. Not when I knew Daniil.
I didn’t even think about it, swinging my legs out of the bed, I went in search of him. And it didn’t take long to find him. He was in his office, sitting behind his desk and talking to one of his men, but his head lifted when I approached the open doorway.
“Lily.” Half rising from his chair, his face broke into a smile that seemed to be half happiness and half worry. “Is everything ok?”
I let my eyes sweep over his handsome face, and it was handsome, but he looked a little tired. He hadn’t been sleeping, and that was my fault.
“Everything’s fine. Timothy is asleep, and I was hoping we could talk.”
There was a moment of surprise at my words, and then he nodded. “Of course. Do you want me to come upstairs?”
I shook my head. No, I didn’t want to go back up to my gilded prison. I wanted to start acting like me again.
The two men exchanged looks, but when his man walked towards me, he had a wide smile on his face. “It’s good to see you looking so well, Miss Ridgeway,” he said politely and with no hint of a lie in his voice. He seemed genuinely pleased.
“Thank you.”
Daniil didn’t say a word until the sound of his footsteps drifted away to silence. Coming around the desk, he perched on the edge of it, the muscles of his arms rippling. He had the nicest arms of any man I had ever met. It was hard to keep my eyes off them.
“Are you ok?” he asked again, his eyes sweeping over my body. Guiltily, I tore my eyes away from those forearms and met his.
“I’m fine. I just wanted to talk. I didn’t mean to interrupt your meeting.”
He was in front of me in a second. His hands closed around my hips. “You never have to apologize for wanting to talk to me. I will always make time for you. Now what’s on your mind?”
His fingers squeezed my hips in time with my thundering heart. It felt better than good to be touched by him again. I’d forgotten how amazing it felt to be alive.
“The fire.”
His hands slipped away from me instantly. Reaching up, he headed back towards his chair, tugging at his hair as he went.
“What about it?” He asked with a sigh.
I stood there by the open doorway. “Are you not going to ask which fire?”
He lifted his eyes to meet mine. I expected to see some kind of barrier there, something that would tell me that he wasn’t about to be entirely honest with me. But they just looked tired.
“I think we both know what fire you are talking about,” he said softly.
“Yeah. Did you set it?” I asked bluntly, and he didn’t even flinch.
“Are you asking if I set it or if I ordered it?”
“Yes.”
His lips twitched. “Yes.”
I rolled my eyes. “That doesn’t answer the question,” I grumbled as I shut the door and went to the seat opposite him.
“Yes, it does, Lily.” Steepling his hands under his chin, he gave me a grin that reminded me of the old him, the Mr. Popov who had been my boss and a suspected Bratva. I no longer suspected he was involved in organized crime, but he was no longer my boss.
“I told you that they would never hurt you again. I wasn’t lying. I made sure they would never hurt you or anyone else ever again.”
He said it softly, but there was conviction in his voice. It forced me to close my eyes. “Were they already dead?” I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “Were they already dead when you set the fire?”
He paused, and I suddenly realized I didn’t really want to know the answer.
“Some of them. A few were executed by my men, trying to escape. But the men who laid hands on you? The ones who wanted to hurt you or Timothy.” His voice cracked.
I’d forgotten that his son had almost been sold and that he’d almost lost us and the pain it must have caused him. Could I really blame him for wanting revenge on the people who would have destroyed his child?
No, I really couldn’t.
“I didn’t show them any mercy. They burned. Locked in like rats in cages. They deserved a more painful death. But I was busy with the twins.”
My head snapped up. And a single tear dripped from my nose, but I wasn’t crying because I felt sorry for the people he had killed. I was crying for him because he should never have had to do it.
I knew what kind of man he was, but this was brutal mass murder.
“Are those tears for people who don’t deserve them?” He asked softly.
I shook my head. “No, not really. I’m glad they are dead. Does that make me a bad person?”
The fact that I wasn’t feeling guilt over their deaths made me feel like the worst human in the world. Daniil leaned forward and took my hands, entwining our fingers on the desk. His palm was warm and dry. Mine felt a little sweaty.
The corners of his mouth curved upwards, and his thumbs brushed against the back of my hand.
“You are not a bad person, Lily. You could never be a bad person. Some people deserve death, and some people—” his eyes swept over me.
“Some people like you deserve to live long and happy lives, surrounded by love and the people who adore them.”
I turned my hands over in his. “Thank you for being honest with me, Daniil.”
His eyes smouldered. “I will always tell you the truth unless it’s dangerous for you to know. I promise you that.”
Taking a deep breath, I asked the question that was most on my mind.
“You mentioned the twins,” I whispered. “Dominik and Piotre.” I almost gagged even saying their names made me want to vomit. My skin prickled with unease as the memories of what they had done to me flowed to the front of my brain.
Daniil’s grip on my hand tightened. “I killed them.”
“I know that, how? Did they suffer?” I stuttered. I couldn’t believe I was asking that question. It felt wrong, but deep down I hoped they had.
Daniil met my eyes without blinking. “Yes, they suffered. But do you really want to know the details?”
I took a deep, shaky breath. “Yes,” I whispered. Straightening my shoulders I nodded more forcefully. “Yes, I want to know, tell me.”
“I tortured them. I tied them to chairs and cut off the parts of their bodies that dared touch you.” His eyes had turned into fire.
“And then I set Dominik alight and made his brother watch him burn. Slowly,” he gritted out, “a few minutes here and there. Going from one to another. Lighting them up until their skin blistered and dousing them the next. They watched each other burn.” He blinked finally.
I ripped my hands away from him and covered my mouth as vomit rushed up and sprayed between my fingers. I had asked, and he had told me the truth. But I never expected it to be like that.
He rushed around, holding a wastebasket under my face. I threw up until there was nothing left in my stomach but white bile.
The entire time, he rubbed a gentle circle on my back.
“They deserved every minute of it, Lily. My only regret is that the pain didn’t last longer.”