29. Artem
Artem
Her door is not quite closed.
A sliver of light spills into the hallway, and I push it open without knocking. After all, this is my house.
She's standing with her back to me highlighted by the lamplight.
She's reaching behind herself to unhook her bra, still in her stockings, the black funeral dress pooled at her feet.
She's lost weight she didn't have to spare, and I can see it in the sharp line of her shoulder blades, the delicate architecture of her spine, but she is still, despite everything, despite what these months have cost her, extraordinary.
The light catches the curve of her waist, the line of her hip, and I stand in the doorway allowing myself to appreciate the view.
Plus, I might have had a sip too much vodka, a rarity for me. I was in a good mood before I saw my wife in the arms of another man.
Seeing Luc Nero with his hands on what is mine made me want to slit his throat and fuck her in his blood. Instead, I had another drink.
She looks up, catching my eyes in the mirror above her dresser, and her expression goes flat.
"Get out."
"No."
She turns then, unhurried, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm changing."
"I've seen you undressed before." My voice is deep. "I've had my face in your pussy. Let's not be coy."
Her eyes narrow, but I can see a delicious flush forming on her chest, and her nipples are pebbling. She likes when I talk dirty. "Get out of my room, Artem."
I lean against the doorframe. "It's not your room."
"Excuse me?"
"This is Viktor's house." I hold her gaze. "Well, it was Viktor's house. It's mine now."
Something ignites behind her eyes, and I'm immediately interested. She's always fought me, but there's something different here. "Is that so." She tilts her chin up and smirks. "This was my grandfather's house. My family's house. It's mine now."
"You think so?" I push off the doorframe and walk further inside.
She doesn't blink. There's no sign of hesitation. She's feeling fiery today. Good. I did not like seeing her in bed, crying and curled up. I prefer this version of Katya, even if she's maddening. "I'm the only living Popova," she says, as though I need a reminder. "It's all mine."
I can't help but laugh. Poor, sweet, innocent Katya. Her grandfather was truly a dick. He should have taken better care of her. "You're my wife."
"I don't need the reminder."
I take a step closer. "Apparently, you do." I can see the small smattering of freckles across her nose and smell the soft scent of her perfume.
"I'm your captive, Artem. Not your wife."
"The legality of it doesn't care what you want to call it. You're my wife, which means something." I gesture around the room. "This house is mine. Just like you."
She stares at me for a long moment, and I expect her to get mouthy again.
Instead, she sighs, shakes her head, and grabs her robe. I long to beg her not to cover herself. My tongue salivates at the thought of tracing itself over her collarbone.
"What do you want, Artem?"
She sits on the edge of the bed, pumping vanilla-scented lotion into her hands and rubbing it against her long, thin legs.
I shake off the distraction. She's not unaware of what she is doing.
"I saw you with Luc Nero."
Her hands still. Just for a second. Enough to know there's something there. My anger is back, red hot.
"I didn't think I needed to tell you not to act like a whore at your grandfather's funeral, but apparently I was wrong."
Her eyes flash. "Go screw yourself."
"You were in his arms." My voice is level. I need it to stay level. If I can't control myself, I'm liable to do something I'll regret later. "In front of my men."
She looks up at me, hazel eyes open and wide, as though trying to portray innocence. Her long lashes flutter, and I know it's an act. Katya is many things but stupid isn't one of them. "Luc is my friend. He held me for thirty seconds. If that's a threat to you?—"
"It's not a threat. It's a humiliation."
"Good." Her eyes are bright. "Now you know how it feels."
I can see the slight unsteadiness of her breathing, the way her jaw is set against it. She's furious. She's been furious for months, and tonight with the grief layered underneath it, the fury has an edge that is new.
"You don't want to push me tonight," I warn.
"And you don't want to threaten me tonight.
" She looks up at me, and there's something in her expression that isn't entirely anger.
I can't read it, and I fucking hate that.
I've been trained to understand people, to see the slightest tell, but my own wife is someone I struggle to understand, and it makes me feel like a failure.
"I would like to be left alone to grieve. "
Her voice cracks on the last word. Just slightly. Just enough.
I reach for her before I decide to, instinctively wanting to provide her with comfort.
"Don't—" she pulls back, but I already have her face in my hands, my thumbs against her cheekbones, and she goes still the way she always goes still when I touch her like this, hating it, leaning into it, furious at herself for both.
I glance down at her silk gown. Fuck. I want her. I want her more than I've wanted anything in a long time.
"I know," I say. It comes out rough. Wrong. "I know what today was."
"You don't."
I hold her gaze. "He was the last one. I know what that feels like."
Something fractures in her expression. She closes her eyes, and I watch her fight herself, the part that wants to pull away, the part that is desperately, inconveniently tired of pulling away, and I wait, because I have learned that waiting is the only language she hears from me that isn't a lie.
She doesn't pull away, and I trail my hand down her neck. This is a bad fucking idea.
And yet the smell of her invades me, and I can't think of anything more than tasting her.
Kneeling, I press the silk of her robe up, baring her to me. She's wearing underwear, lacy and black.
"Are you kneeling before me?" she asks, a laugh in her voice. "There's got to be some sort of metaphor here."
I lean down, taking in her scent. "No metaphor." I nip at her, and she jumps slightly. "I just want to taste you."
That's the only warning I give her before I yank the underwear from her body.
She yelps in surprise, but I'm on her in a moment. Her knees clench around my head, and she cries out.
Her hands tangle into my hair, and she pulls. I smirk at the pain. There are the claws she hides so well.
"Fuck," she moans, and I look up to see her biting her knuckles. The sight of her stifling her moan pisses me off, and I pull away just as I feel her tightening.
Immediately, her eyes snap to me. "Wha?—?"
"Do not act like this is something you don't want." I grip her thighs. "I'm not taking something you don't want to give me."
Her hazel eyes glower at me. "Don't fuck with me, Artem."
"That's exactly what I want to do."
She makes a move to snap her thighs together, but I lean down and sink my teeth into the flesh of her inner thigh. She yelps and tries to push me off, but I continue, sucking until I taste copper against my tongue.
"Don't pretend you don't want this." I stand, pulling her flush against me.
"Let me go!" She pulls her arms back to hit me, but I grab her thin wrists and force them above her head.
My free hand pulls at my belt, freeing myself.
"I hate you!"
I press into her body. There's no resistance, and I feel her shudder. I groan. "For someone who hates me, you almost just came."
I hit the spot I know she loves, and her back arches slightly. "Yes," she cries out. "Right there."
"There we go," I murmur, leaning down to drag my mouth along her jaw. "Let go. Let me take care of you."
Her body clenches against me, and I know she's close. She wants this as much as I do. The difference is that she can't admit it. It would be defeat, and she's so determined to win she'd deny herself the real victory.
I drag against her clit as I move into her. Her nails dig into my back, but she doesn't push me away.
"Come on, baby. Give it to me."
She shakes her head, eyes shut tight, but her body doesn't lie, and as I reach down and pinch her nipple, she explodes. Her body clenches around me like a vice, and I follow seconds later, pressing deep and holding there until I've spent myself entirely.
Afterward the silence is different from other times. Heavier. I pull out, and Katya's eyes fly open.
I watch the realization arrive on her face, the sequence of it — confusion first, then understanding, then something that goes cold and very fast.
"Artem." Her voice is flat. Dangerous.
"Katya—"
"You didn't." She sits up, putting distance between us, the sheet clutched to her chest. "Tell me you didn't."
I know exactly what she's asking.
I say nothing, which is its own answer.
"You did this on purpose." Not a question. Her voice has dropped to something quiet that is much worse than yelling. "You came inside of me deliberately."
"You're on the shot."
Her face drops. "You fucker. I didn't get it this month, and you knew that. You know everything."
I don't bother denying it. It's not true. I didn't keep track of that. I wasn't thinking rationally enough to plan something like this, and I don't keep track of her birth control.
I just wanted inside of Katya, to prove, childishly, that I could.
I sit up. Run a hand through my hair. This was not the plan, and while I knew it was a possibility, it was meant to be avoided. "If you're pregnant?—"
"I won't be."
"We must have taken a different biology course."
She swallows. "I'm not ovulating." Her voice quivers, and I can see it in her eyes — she's not entirely sure.
"Does birth control affect your cycle?"
"I'm only two weeks from the shot."
"If you are," I continue, my voice steadier than I feel, "the child will be my heir."
The silence that follows is absolute.
She looks at me for a long time. Long enough that I start to wonder what she's deciding. Then she gets up, wraps the sheet around herself, crosses the room to the window, and stands there with her back to me, looking out at the dark garden that used to be Viktor's and is now mine.
I try to ignore the way her presence against the window makes my stomach clench. Before we moved in, I had all the windows checked and retrofitted. None open wide enough for a body.
"I want a divorce."
The words land quietly. Final.
"No."
"I'm not asking." She turns. Her face is composed in a way that costs her. I can see exactly what it costs her. "I'm telling you. I want out. Viktor is dead. It's done. Let me go."
"It's not done."
"Then tell me what's left." Her voice rises slightly. "Tell me what you still need from me, Artem, because I am trying to understand what possible reason you have to keep me here."
"You're my wife."
"I'm your prisoner."
"Katya—"
"I know about Irina."
I go very still.
"What did you say?"
She holds my gaze, hands shaking slightly, not trying to hide it. "I know she was your sister. I know she was married to Alexei. I know she's why you're here, why you chose me, why any of this exists." Her voice is steady despite the shaking. "I know."
"Who told you?" My voice comes out wrong. Too low. Too much in it. "None of the guards would."
Her lip quivers. "It doesn't matter?—"
"Who?"
She takes a step back. "It doesn't?—"
"You don't get to say her name." I'm moving toward her and I can't stop, can't locate the part of me that manages this, that keeps the cold in place and the rest of it locked down.
"You don't get to stand there and tell me what you know about Irina like it's information you've collected, like she's a piece of your puzzle?—"
"She's the reason my life was destroyed!
" Her voice breaks on it, the composure shattering all at once.
"She's the reason you chose me, the reason Viktor gave me away, the reason I've spent the last few months watching everything I worked so hard for be destroyed.
So don't tell me I don't get to know about her. Don't you dare."
"You know nothing." My voice is shaking. I didn't know it could do that anymore. "You know a name. You know nothing about what she was, what she went through, what it cost?—"
"Then tell me." She spreads her hands. Eyes wet. Still standing her ground. "Tell me. I'm asking you to be honest for once." She sniffles. "Help me understand."
I know I should leave. I'm not in the right headspace for this.
"You're a spoiled little princess," I say instead, and I hear myself say it and I hate myself for it even as the words keep coming.
"You've spent your whole life running from this world, hiding behind ballet and borrowed apartments and the fiction that none of it had anything to do with you.
You have no idea what it means to lose something. You have no idea what it costs."
She goes white. Her lips press together in a thin line, and she stands perfectly still, absorbing it.
"You don't know what it is to be used," I say, and the cruelty of it lands on us both equally. "You were inconvenienced, Katya. You were redirected. My sister was destroyed. She was ripped to shreds, and when she couldn't take it anymore, she decided to end her life."
The silence that follows is the worst I've ever heard. I catch sight of myself in the reflection of the glass — my hand is raised, the other at my waist where I keep my gun. I look like a man I've spent years trying not to become.
"Katya—" I move toward her slowly.
She moves.
Not at me. Past me, to the door, yanking it open, and I don't stop her.
She gets three steps down the hallway before she stops.
I watch her realize it. The guards at the end of the corridor, positioned exactly where they're supposed to be. The front door below, staffed. The gate at the property's edge, locked.
She turns back to look at me, and her expression is the one I'll see for a long time afterward when I close my eyes. Not fury. Not grief. Something that has gone past both of those.
I walk to the doorway. I hold her gaze across the length of the hall.
"You're my wife." My voice is quiet now. The storm is over. What's left is just the truth, cold and simple and irrevocable. "Until you die. That doesn't change."
She stares at me.
I mean it as a threat. I hear it land as something else — a vow, a sentence, something that is both terrible and absolute.
I don't take it back.
She turns and walks down the hallway in the opposite direction from the guards, and I stand in the doorway and listen to the sound of a door closing somewhere in the depths of this house that used to be Viktor's.
I lean my head against the frame.
I am very good at winning.
I don't know what to do with the fact that this doesn't feel like winning.