11. Aleksandr #2
“You played her,” I say evenly.
He answers too quickly. “No. I just didn’t want to complicate things.”
My voice stays level. “So you fed her a lie. Sent her into my house with a fake mission to keep her occupied. Told her she was some soldier waging a noble war against me. And when she sent you report after report—trusting you, believing you were guiding her—you went silent. You abandoned her the moment it was convenient for you to do so.”
He looks away.
The fire in the hearth snaps, the only sound in the room.
I lean forward again, elbows on my knees. Something inside me hardens.
He took everything she loved about him—his integrity, his service, his supposed honor—and twisted it into a leash. He sent her into my home believing she was serving her country, believing she was protecting something greater than herself.
He turned her patriotism into a blade and aimed it inward.
That is a sin I cannot forgive.
I stand.
The look on his face tells me he understands what is about to happen. His eyes widen, his body tensing as instinct finally screams the warning his pride always seems to favor ignoring.
I hit him hard enough that the sound echoes through the room like a gunshot, sending him sprawling backward, the chair under him crashing to the floor as he lands in a heap of broken dignity.
I round the desk slowly, giving him no time to crawl away and call for his security team to intervene before I’m on him again.
Every strike is fueled by a single, relentless truth that burns fire inside my veins—that someone should have protected her and stood between her and this man who would sell her soul just to save his own skin.
I don’t stop when he begs me to. I will only do so when there’s nothing left of him that still resembles the person she trusted most in this world.
There is no restraint in beating him to near death, no measured discipline in the delighted satisfaction I feel once I finally feel the bones in his face give way and shatter. There is no lesson to be taught here because this isn’t meant to be a reprimand. It’s contempt given form.
Every blow is for a different sin. For lying to her, for feeding her patriotism like poison and pretending it was the exact opposite, for turning her loyalty for him into leverage that he used to abandon her.
For daring to call himself her father while selling her and presenting it as a noble cause.
He tries to crawl away when I lift myself off him to shed the jacket hindering my movement, but I don’t let him.
I drag him back by the ankle and beat him until his pleas blur into wet, meaningless noise.
Until the man who thought himself untouchable understands exactly how small he truly is and the medals on his walls will do nothing to protect him from me.
She loved him enough to sacrifice herself despite never knowing the true reason. Agreeing to marriage because she truly thought he would rescue her when the time came. Now she is forever bound to me.
By the time I stop, my knuckles are slick with blood and my breathing is harsh and chopped. Ramil Borchin lies broken on his own floor, a ruined heap of flesh. He’s alive but stripped of whatever power he thought he once held.
I look down at him once more as I rise to my feet, disgust settling in where rage once burned bright. “This is what you’ve earned. Be grateful for your daughter. She is the only reason I will not kill you today. I’ll leave that decision in her hands.”
I leave him there without another word
He is not worth another second of my fury.
When I return to the estate, she’s already outside waiting for me.
Katya stands on the front steps, small against the backdrop of the massive entryway.
Her gaze locks onto the drive long before my car rounds the final bend, unflinching as if she’s been standing there for hours.
Her hands are folded in front of her, fingers knitting together to hide the slight tremor I notice even from this distance.
Her posture is calm but too rigid to look natural. Her chin is lifted slightly with that defiant tilt I’ve come to find endearing. Strangely, though, she doesn’t look at all happy to see me. Which is odd considering how her body clung to mine just hours ago up in her bedroom.
As soon as I park the car and kill the engine, it hits me immediately. She thinks I found something. She thinks I know.
I remain seated for a moment, leaning forward slightly to watch her through the windshield. She shifts her weight but doesn’t move from where she’s standing, her shoulders moving visibly while she pulls in a deep breath.
She thinks I’ve come back to punish her… and yet she’s outside waiting for me, anyway, meeting my arrival head-on.
There is a courage in her—an instinctual bravery, rather—that has nothing to do with whatever training her father forced upon her before giving her to me.
The same stubborn, unyielding determination that drove her to spy on me in the first place, the same fire that made her slap me and the same fearlessness that made her pull me into her bed, is the exact personality type of woman I should hate.
Yet the burning in my chest feels the exact opposite.
For the first time since holding that burner phone in my hand, I feel the weight of the situation flicker toward somewhere more volatile.
Even knowing she tried to take me down from the inside, believing it to even be possible, the sight of her standing there waiting for me shapes the anger I hold for her father into something much more possessive.
I push the door open and step out into the late afternoon air.
She’s down the steps before I even have the car door shut.
The moment her feet hit the drive, she runs for me.
She’s already reaching for me, her eyes sweeping over my body and widening when they land on the dark stains streaked across my clothing.
Blood has soaked through the fabric, smeared across the front of my jacket, seeping into the creases of my shirt.
It’s still tacky in places, clinging to my skin uncomfortably.
There’s no mistaking what it is, no pretending it’s anything other than what it looks like.
“Are you hurt?” she asks breathlessly. Her hands hover over the stains on my chest, unsure where to start. “What the hell happened? Where did you go? Oh, my God, Aleks—why the hell didn’t you go to the damn hospital?”
Her voice quavers on the last sentence, anger and fear tangling so tightly together, they’re nearly indistinguishable from one another.
She looks furious with me, eyes snapping between my face and my blood-soaked clothes, struggling to understand how I’m even standing upright with how much covers me.
Before she can start ripping my jacket off right there in the middle of the driveway, I catch her wrists gently. Her pulse jumps frantically under my fingers when I settle them over the delicate skin of her inner wrists. I brush my thumb over her pulse point, trying to anchor her.
“I’m fine,” I say, letting a small smile tug at the corners of my mouth.
Her concern is… unexpectedly charming.
“You’re covered in blood!” she snaps. “Come inside. Oh my God, we need to call paramedics. You have medics on staff, right? What the fuck?”
For a split second, I consider deflecting, lying and telling her that it had been a business deal gone wrong and that she doesn’t need to know the details because they are mundane and unimportant.
But then she grabs the lapels of my jacket, tugging me toward the steps with both hands, not caring in the slightest about the blood coating her palms, and I dismiss the thought entirely.
She deserves the truth.
Even if it breaks her.
I exhale slowly and plant both feet firmly on the ground, keeping her from dragging me another inch inside.
Her head snaps up to glare at me, a silent, panicked demand for answers written across her face.
Her eyes flick down again to my ruined clothes and uninjured frame.
She registers the lack of pain in my posture the longer we stand here.
Confusion twists her features.
“Katerina,” I say quietly. Her body goes rigid at the use of her full name. “I went to see your father.”
For a long moment, she simply stares at me in disbelief. Her grip on my jacket tightens until her knuckles bleach white.
“He’s still alive,” I add before her panic can spiral.
The reassurance does absolutely nothing to soften the horror that floods her expression when she pulls her hands away from my jacket and looks down at the red smeared across her pale skin, soaking into the thin lines of her fingerprints.
Her head shakes violently, her hands trembling uncontrollably as she stares down at them
“No…” she whispers.
My own fingers rub together at my sides, a restless, subtle motion I rarely allow myself to indulge. This… is harder than I thought it would be.
Contrary to popular belief, my wish isn’t to hurt her. Quite the opposite, actually. However, forcing someone to see the manipulation in which they were raised and accept that the person they trusted most has used and abandoned them is not something that happens gently.
I knew going into this, far before I arrived back home, that she would push back. I knew she would refuse to believe me at first. That this breaking point would come before she pushed past the beliefs she’s been brainwashed into taking at face value.
I just didn’t expect the pain on her face to make me want to hesitate.
“I found your burner phone underneath your mattress this morning.” I say.
She inhales sharply, the sound dangerously close to a sob. Her shoulders jerk with the motion.
I step closer, crowding into her space, forcing her eyes up to mine again. “I went to him to confirm some information.”
When she finally lifts her gaze, her lashes are wet. Guilt slices through me harsh enough to steal my breath from me.
“He lied to you, Katerina. About everything.”