Sergei
I wake to the sensation of being watched. Not the uncomfortable kind that sets off alarm bells. I know it’s her. I keep my eyes closed for a moment longer, savoring the peace of this moment before the world intrudes again.
When I finally open them, she’s propped up on one elbow, her dark hair falling over her shoulder.
“Morning,” I say, my voice rough with sleep.
“Morning.” She doesn’t look away.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Did you know her well?”
I shift onto my side so we’re facing each other. This is a conversation I knew was coming, but I wasn’t sure when she’d be ready for it.
“Not well,” I admit. “I saw her at the house a few times. They were discreet.”
“Did your father love her?”
I think about it. “I don’t know. I think he cared about her.”
“How long were they messing around?”
“I didn’t ask a lot of details. I would guess a couple of years.”
“Did your father kill her?”
The question is barely a whisper. I’m ashamed by his role in the night that changed her life forever.
“He was there.”
She blinks back tears. “No one was there for her, to protect her. She had nobody.”
There’s nothing I can say to take away the pain. Elena got a raw deal. It wasn’t fair.
“She was always kind to me,” I say. “She would always ask how I was doing. She took care of a knife wound I got once. I believe she was a good person who got sucked into a life she was never going to get out of.”
“Just like me.”
“Not like you. I will never do what they did to her.”
“I wish she would have had someone. I hate that she was alone.”
I hold the silence, letting her process.
“She was too good for my father. And yours. I remember one night, she told me I should get out before it was too late. She stepped between my father and me one night. I remember thinking she was brave. She was trying to protect me.”
“That sounds like her.”
“She loved you fiercely. That much was obvious, even to an outsider.”
“I’m glad you were there,” she says. “I’m glad she didn’t die alone.”
“I wish I could have helped her.
She’s quiet for a moment, processing. Then she shifts topics slightly. “The last few years...weird things kept happening. Things I didn’t understand at the time.”
I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. “Yeah?”
“Like that guy I went on a date with last year. We were at dinner and he went to the bathroom and just...never came back. I thought maybe I said something wrong or he got sick.”
I bark out a laugh. “He didn’t get sick.”
Her eyes widen. “That was you?”
“That was me. Well, Kirill, technically. He had a very persuasive conversation with the guy about appropriate behavior on dates.”
“He was perfectly nice!”
“He had three prior arrests for assault. All against women. All charges mysteriously dropped.” I brush a strand of hair behind her ear. “I wasn’t letting him anywhere near you.”
She stares at me, her mouth slightly open. “What else?”
“What else what?”
“What else did you do that I didn’t know about?”
I think back over the years. There’s so much. “The girl you were friends with the first couple of weeks you started college.”
“Tori?”
“No. We cleared her.”
“Marissa?”
“Yes.”
Sofia sits up completely now, the sheet pooling around her waist. “She left school before the end of the first semester. Did you—kill her?”
“She left. Voluntarily.” I sit up too, leaning back against the headboard. “She was selling your personal information to a tabloid blogger.”
“I never knew that.”
“You weren’t supposed to.” I reach out and pull her against my side. She comes willingly, tucking herself under my arm. I can feel her processing, connecting dots she didn’t know existed.
“I can’t believe all of that was you.”
“Sometimes Nelson. Sometimes other guards.”
Her gaze drifts across the room, landing on the painting hanging opposite the bed.
“Who painted that?” she asks.
I don’t talk about this. Ever. She’s my wife. She deserves to know.
“My mother.”
Sofia turns to look at me, her expression softening. “Your mother painted?”
“It was her escape.”
“The same way my mother had her books.”
I stare at the painting. “She’d lock herself in her studio for hours. My father hated it. Said it was a waste of time. That she should be focused on being a pakhan’s wife.”
“But she kept painting anyway.”
“Until my father killed her.”
“Your father killed your mother?”
“Not directly. It was a rival hit meant for him but killed her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“My father destroyed most of her work after she died. Said it was evidence of her weakness. That painting is the only one I managed to save.”
Sofia’s hand finds mine, lacing our fingers together. She doesn’t offer platitudes or sympathy. She just holds my hand and lets me continue.
“I was twenty-one when she was killed. She used to always make me promise I wouldn’t end up like my father.”
“You’re not like him,” Sofia says quietly.
“I’ve done terrible things.”
“To protect people. That’s different.”
“Is it?”
She shifts so she’s looking directly at me. “Yes. Your mother would understand that. You’re not a saint, but you don’t randomly kill women, do you?”
“No.”
“Then you’re not him.”
I want to believe that. I want to think my mother would approve of the man I’ve become, even with all the blood on my hands.
“Our child will have it better,” she says. “Do not let my child grow up without me.”
“I swear on my life, I will not allow our child to endure what we have. You will not die.”
She smiles. “Thank you for keeping me safe even when I didn’t know I needed it.”
“I’ll do it again. A thousand times over.” I cup her face in my hand. “You’re mine to protect, Sofia. You and our child. That’s not a burden. It’s a privilege. And I will spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”
She kisses me and then rests her face against my chest.
I hold her and stare at my mother’s painting, thinking about promises made and kept.
I’m not the man my father wanted me to be.
I’m the man my mother hoped I could be.