Chapter 44 Rafael
“It’s bullshit!” Enzo explodes into the gym, barely hanging onto his sanity. “She’s not fucking dead, not from a fucking car accident. She’s too fucking smart.”
Sighing, I drop my fists, my body covered in sweat.
I’ve taken to killing myself in the gym, Enzo has taken to fucking anything that walks, which wasn’t out of the usual before Lu—Katya, but now it’s worse.
Now he’s drinking heavily and rarely comes home.
He needs to fucking clean up his act. If he continues down this path, he will completely derail, and I’ll have no choice but to drop everything to bring him back to me.
If I have to beat it out of him, I will.
Releasing my feelings on these bags or anyone else I can find who knows anything about Katya Romanova has become my only respite.
My coping mechanism may be healthier and more productive, but it’s still a coping mechanism.
Something I never imagined needing when it came to Lucy Sinclair.
Still, it’s better than my brother’s. Enzo’s will land him with a shot of Clindamycin in his ass.
“Enzo, did you read the file?”
“Yes, I fucking read it.” He paces behind the bag as I continue my combos. The slap of my flesh against the leather and the scuff of his shoes are the only sounds in the massive underground gym.
“Then you saw the photos. It was her. No way could she have survived those injuries. And if you’re going to say they were photoshopped, I could agree. But how do you explain the DNA?”
The police collected DNA, running it through their database, but of course they found no matches. No one has come forward to claim her. And since Katya Romanova lived her life as a ghost, she’ll remain a Jane Doe. But we had our own guys run the DNA. Again, nothing.
Of course, we didn’t expect her to pop up as related to Alexey Romanova, we knew from our inside sources Alexey never had a daughter. Instead, he acquired a young girl at the age of nine from his financial advisor who he had killed.
Through ungodly means involving a shovel and an unmarked grave, our men were able to get DNA from this advisor to run against her. The test showed she was in fact the daughter of Niko Morozov. Our Belaya Sova.
“DNA doesn’t lie, Enzo.”
He continues to pace, trying to think through and solve the riddle. But he won’t. He will never let this go simply because he wasn’t the one to kill her. It’s been what has driven him since we lost our mother. And now, he doesn’t know who he is without his purpose.
He doesn’t know who he is without her. In any of her forms.
In a fucked-up way, that woman, whether posing as Lucy or as Katya, has been the gravity keeping him grounded. Without her, he’s floating in an abyss. Lost in space amongst the stars.
“She could be working with someone, someone who could have fabricated this lie.”
“She was isolated all her life, Enzo.” I hit the bag with more force this time at the admission of what we know of her not only as Katya…but as Lucy. The idea she was alone, tortured, manipulated, just like our mother, has me seeing red. “She was alone before and she would have been alone after.”
And if she is out there, she would be alone still. Not able to risk either my brother and I…or Ilya and Alexey finding her.
I know her crimes. I know what she’s done but I’m not blinded by rage like my brother.
He only sees the surface; the life she took from him.
I see what’s underneath. When I was young and immediately affected by the loss of our mother, I encouraged his malice.
But as the years have gone by, something has shifted in me. Not forgiveness but understanding.
She has shifted me.
“And what about the man who shot at Ilya? Could he lead us to her in some way since he was working for Ilya?”
“Want me to dig him up and ask?”
Come to find out, apparently the man at the gala was hired by Ilya.
A bit of a risky move but knowing what we know now, it was brilliant.
He was testing Katya. Putting her in a position to choose us or him and when her instincts kicked in, it most likely revealed to her who she was always meant to choose.
But I put a bullet in his skull not thinking of how we could use him for information. I was only thinking of protecting her.
My brother’s rambling thoughts are not foreign to me.
I’m desperate for answers myself, the things she confessed the night we found out who she was…
Her tenderness with monsters like us, her love for Nova, her inhibited laughter, the scars surrounding her rib cage.
All pieces of her that add up to be…who?
Was it Katya, was it Lucy, or was it someone she didn’t even recognize?
Enzo remains blindfolded by rage, but the veil of hurt and anger has been lifted for me. Katya is as broken and fucked up as us. A product of cruel creation.
We promised her protection and then tore her apart when all she needed was for us to see her. I promised to keep her from burning and then threw her into the fire myself.
Had she not perished in the accident, I would continue to hunt her, if only to drop to my knees and apologize for failing her. As memories of her swirl inside my mind again, one blurred moment always returns to me like a nightmare.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispers, her cold hands cupping my jaw. “One man was not meant to hold so many burdens, Rafael.”
If only she were right. But it is my responsibility. My burden. I wish it wasn’t. I wish I could collapse into her, let her take it all away. I grip her hips, pulling her into me as if I could sink into her velvet-soft skin, disappearing inside for a while.
“Where did you come from, Bellissima Cerva?”
“Hell.”
Her numb answer bleeds honesty. She truly believes that. But she couldn’t be further from the truth. She came from my fucking dreams, conjured to save me and destroy me.
“My brother thinks you want us. To stay with us. Is that true?”
Her worried gaze scans my face, contemplating what she wants or wants me to believe. My jaw tightens, eyelids slamming shut at the idea of her leaving, I fucking hate it. It’s a physical pain inside me making my stomach twist violently…or maybe it’s all the whiskey. “Don’t lie.”
“I can’t, Rafael. There are…forces keeping me from doing what I want. Keep me from who I want to be.”
It was right in front of us all along, if only we would have looked past our pride.
She called to us, silently screaming at us to save her from the burning house she was raised in.
We were given the chance to pull her from the flames, and instead we slammed the door in her face because that’s what broken people do.
Break others. I’m just not sure who shattered who first.
“We will continue to search for her, Enzo,” I concede and his pacing halts.
Because Enzo’s right, despite the alarmingly solid evidence, I know if Katya Romanova left this world, something profound would go missing from my chest. And I still feel it beating like a lead hammer, so she must be out there.
“You’ll help me?”
I round the bag and grip the back of his neck, knuckles split and dripping with blood. “We will find her, Fratellino.”
And when we do, we will come to a crossroads. Two devils at war with each other. One who wants to kill her, one who wants to save her.