Chapter 32 - Konstantin
Tati wasn’t fine at all, sobbing against my chest, her whole body trembling.
She had every reason to be rattled after being manhandled by that drunk, who was certainly being taught his lesson by my guards right now.
Still, her reaction seemed severe, and with the nightmares I’d witnessed, this had to be deeper than what went on in the club.
She hadn’t woken up screaming again, but just last night she was tossing and turning and mumbling in her sleep. She calmed down once I pulled her into my arms, not waking up until morning and never saying a word about it.
I held onto her, mentally kicking myself.
Grabbing her off the street must have traumatized the hell out of her, so all of this was my fault.
My anger spread out like tentacles, looking for someone else to blame.
I never thought it was right to shelter her from Bratva life the way Grigor did.
She needed at least some training beyond being able to pick a lock.
My kids grew up knowing how to fight, shoot, connive, and everything else they needed to know to stay alive.
Hell, Sofiya had wanted to submit a bomb for her sixth-grade science fair project.
Thankfully, I was able to talk her into building a volcano instead, though she was bitter about it for a while since she didn’t place that year, certain the bomb would have won.
And my younger boys were a bit wild, sure. They were chips off the old block. Maybe Sofiya had grown older than her years and worried too much, but at least I could sleep at night knowing they could handle themselves.
Tati was a quivering mess, and I wished I had hit the man another time, but only because I couldn’t hit myself for making her so afraid.
She rested her head against the car window, sniffling and failing to get herself together as we drove back to the beach house.
I remained silent, not sure what to say or do to make it better.
Another apology wouldn’t do shit; promises to keep her safe meant nothing when the enemies haunted her mind.
When I opened the car door, and she got out, her legs faltered. Once again, she tried to say she was fine as she held onto my arm for support. I swept her up and carried her, ignoring her feeble protests.
“You’re not fine,” I growled once we were inside.
I set her down on the couch and poured her a stiff drink of straight whiskey, and one for myself. It might take the whole bottle to put me back together. She knocked it back and sighed.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
It was the final blow. I was shattered. How the fuck did she think she needed to apologize? “Tati, no. I’m the one who’s sorry. So damn sorry I did that.”
She looked at me, utterly confused. “I’m glad you punched him. I wish I had stomped him myself now that I’m thinking back on it.”
I smiled weakly at her attempt to be brave when the last bits of whiskey sloshed in her glass because of her shaking hands.
“I meant I’m sorry about… the street rescue.
I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that. Wearing a mask.
Damn it, Tati. I was a complete asshole, and yet it’s hard to be sorry when I think about…
” My voice cracked, and I trailed off, realizing I was doing what Sofiya called making it all about me.
My sweet Tati put her hand on my arm. “It—it’s not your fault.”
“The fuck it isn’t. You’re still shaking. And the nightmares? You can’t blame them on that piece of shit at the club.”
“No,” she said slowly, eyes downcast. “But I can’t blame it all on you, either. I’m glad you rescued me from Riku, I really am, now that I know what he’s capable of. You might have awakened those memories, but you didn’t put them there.”
For a moment, my heart swelled with release, but my blood turned cold when I realized she had memories that might be worse than me grabbing her off the street. “What happened?” I asked, voice hard. I gently laid my hand over hers and tried not to look like I wanted to murder someone.
“It’s silly.”
“Not if it wakes you up screaming, it’s not. Tell me, Tati. It might help.”
“It was ages ago, when I first started college,” she sighed, leaning back into the couch cushions and closing her eyes. I refrained from reminding her how young she was and that her first year of college wasn’t exactly the distant past.
“This sorority group decided they didn’t like me. I kept to myself because I was in some advanced classes and wasn’t much of a party goer anyway, but I guess someone thought I was stuck up and too good for them, or whatever.
“It started out as little notes, threatening stupid stuff like keying my car. Then they actually keyed my car. They broke into it once and poured something that smelled bad all over the seats—”
“What did your father do?” I interrupted.
“Nothing. I took it to be deep-cleaned and didn’t say anything about it. Then the threats got worse. Scarier. They talked about blood, and one day, I had left my bag on the chair in the student lounge to get a coffee, and when I came back, it was full of red ink. I threw it out and got a new bag.”
“Tati,” I said, when she stopped, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “That’s terrible, but not exactly worth nightmares.”
“I’m getting to it,” she said impatiently, and I was glad to see a spark of fire return to her eyes.
I squeezed her hand and nodded, silently promising to shut up.
“They enlisted some fraternity guys to join in, and they cornered me one night on the way back to my car after an evening class.” My hand tightened around hers while the other one clenched into a fist. “That time was just some pushing and shoving, trying to keep me from getting into my car. It went on like that for a couple of weeks until I was exhausted, always looking over my shoulder, always scared of what new threat they’d leave for me, then waiting for it to happen. ”
“Why the hell—”
She interrupted my outburst. “Because you know what would happen to them if I said a word to Papa. I thought about asking Sofiya for help, but she would have told you, and you would have told Papa…”
“Damn straight.”
“And it all would have ended up the same way.” She laughed bitterly.
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty, isn’t that what they say?
But I let it go and tried to stay out of their way, which only enraged them more.
I really don’t know why they had it out for me, but they finally grabbed me.
I fought, but there were too many of them, boys and girls.
They shoved me into a dark room and hit me with sticks, threw rocks at me.
” She rubbed the side of her head as if remembering the pain they caused.
“They tore my clothes and poured… poured horrible things on me, all the time laughing their heads off.”
She broke down again, her face in her hands. All I could do was pull her close, but she was stiff in my arms. “You never should have had to go through that,” I said, already planning each and every one of those kids’ demise.
Youth was no excuse for that kind of behavior, and I was certain that after some digging, I’d find that at least one of them had gone on to more violent crimes.
“I hid the bruises and scratches,” she said. “I somehow got home after they left, burned the ruined clothes, and stuffed it all down after that.”
“And now it’s back,” I said.
Slowly, she relaxed in my arms, and her tears abated. Leaning away from me, she looked up with a tremulous smile. “I think I might really be okay now.”
I held her tighter anyway, not about to let her go anytime soon.