Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Xeniya Morozova
My heart jumped into my throat, and I melted onto my bed.
“What is it?” Abigail asked.
“It’s a gift from Severin.” My eyes darted to my sister, and we shared a silent, secret conversation that amounted to: Get her the fuck out of this room.
In a moment, Nika had made up a brilliant excuse and ushered Abigail out of my room. I didn’t hear the actual words. My eyes were fixed on Chad’s lifeless head, now nestled in my lap.
And the first thought I had was, I wonder what they did with his penis.
Yeah, not normal. My second thought was pure, stomach-twisting revulsion, not from the violent and disgusting nature of the gift but from the reminder of why I needed the gift.
Then the rage hit. Deep, guttural fury. Because why the actual fuck would Severin send me a severed head in a box?
Slowly, as if not wanting to spook a feral cat, Katya tiptoed up to me and sat by my side, her gaze also landing on the no-longer-attached head.
“Well, I’d like to say I’m surprised, but this is the least surprising thing I’ve seen all day.” Katya nudged my shoulder and let out a giggle. “I can guarantee my brother helped him do this.”
“I have no doubt.” I stared at Katya for a long moment. I sucked in a slow breath and set the box back down on my bed.
As I stood to change into sneakers instead of heels, Nika walked back in and, without permission, opened the box. “Well, fuck.”
“Yeah,” Katya pulled out the word like an elastic band.
Nika’s head snapped to me. “What are you going to do?”
I kicked off my heels and slipped on my socks and sneakers before lifting my chin up to answer. “I’m going to return it to sender.”
I swung my purse over my shoulder and grabbed the box out of my sister’s hands.
“Do you want help with that?” Nika asked.
“No,” I growled, then turned on my heel and left the room.
I heard Katya’s words floating in the air behind me. “God help those boys.”
“Yeah…” Nika added. “We really should follow.”
“Nah, let her go destroy them… they can probably handle it.”
It only took me seven minutes to walk to the Zeta house. I didn’t have a plan. I had an emotion: unbridled fury. So without knocking, I stalked through the house and up the stairs. I was like the spirit of vengeance coming to collect souls.
Like a Fury from Greek mythology.
As I hit the top landing, I ran into Kaz as he turned a corner, and I nearly dropped the box. I imagined the head popping out and rolling across the old wood, and I laughed.
Would it bounce?
My lips quirked to one side, and I wanted to test the theory.
“Oh, he actually sent it to you.” Kaz chuckled. “I didn’t think he’d do it, and as much as I hate him, I have to admit the boy has balls.”
I fixed Kaz with a lethal glare, and his smile immediately faded.
“You hate it?” he asked.
“No.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Then why do you look like you want to kill me?”
“Because I do.” I really did not want to explain my emotions to him when I barely understood them myself.
Kaz cocked his head and studied me for a moment. “Got it. You’re not here to yell at me.”
“I am not.”
“Well, on your way then.”
I shook my head and smiled. Kaz was my best friend; he knew how to read me, maybe better than I knew myself.
“Have fun with that conversation.” Glee lit up his face as I walked past him.
“Is he in his room?”
“Oh, yes.” He chuckled. Kaz was enjoying this far too much.
I turned away to find my real victim, but when I was two steps away, I stopped and yelled back, “One other thing, Kaz. Get that look of sympathy off your face when you see me. I never want to see it again.”
Kaz clicked his tongue playfully. “There’s my girl.” He walked down the stairs, his laughter echoing as he went.
When I reached Severin’s door, I stopped and closed my eyes, bracing for whatever waited on the other side. I genuinely didn’t know what I would say. My fingers dug into the box for support.
As I opened my eyes, the door swung open, and I was standing face-to-face with a surprised Severin who was about to walk out.
“Hi,” he said tentatively.
I said nothing, my molars clenched, and my fingers were still digging into the corners of the box.
He took a measured step toward me. “You’re angry.”
I still said nothing and did nothing.
Slowly, step by step, he approached like a beast tamer, trying not to set off the tiger in the cage. But I didn’t move—not even an inch.
Gently, he pried my fingers off the box and placed it on the narrow console table next to his door. I let him.
“You’re very angry.”
My throat was dry as ash and on fire. “Yes,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry, I thought you would want to see it.”
I blinked. Did he think I was mad he had cut off a politician’s son’s head? That was not at all the problem. “You sent it to my sorority house.”
Confusion painted itself across his face. “What?”
“Anyone could have opened the box and seen it.” I crossed my arms protectively over my chest. Severin could not go to jail for me. I couldn’t get caught covering up a murder for him. That’s why fury flowed through my blood like wildfire.
“Wait, so you’re not mad at me for giving you a severed head?”
“No.”
“You’re mad because I left it at your sorority house?”
“Yes,” I said, my nose scrunching. “That’s what I said.”
Severin’s brow furrowed, and he took a step back into his room, and his gaze searched my face. “Come in, Zaya.”
Instead of arguing with him or telling him for the millionth time not to call me Bunny, I did what he asked.
He sat on his bed and patted the spot next to him. “Join me, Zaya.”
I followed his instructions too easily, but then I liked it when he told me what to do… far more than I would ever admit. “Tell me in excruciating detail what you did to him.”
For a moment, we sat in silence, both staring at Severin’s light blue bedroom walls.
Then, in excruciating detail, he told me how they tortured him for two weeks.
Severin, Ilya, Kaz, and Maks had worked together—for once without arguments.
They peeled back his skin from his body slowly, plucked out his eyes, and cut off his fingers one by one.
They also cut off his penis, grilled it, and forced him to eat it. I found that bit incredibly inspiring.
I sat quietly through the entire story, refusing to take my gaze off the blue paint.
I counted the grooves in the stucco. I didn’t know how to look at Severin or even what to say.
So instead, I focused on the torture. On the image of Chad tied up and his muscles exposed, bleeding from being skinned alive.
It must have been excruciating.
I loved that, because he had stolen from me. He made me weak and question myself and hate myself, and I wanted him to suffer. I was glad Severin made that happen.
After an age of silence, I finally breathed, “Thank you.”
Severin was patient, waiting for me to say more or do something. But I didn’t know what to say or do, and I especially couldn’t meet his eyes. Severin always knew too much. He was clever and brilliant, and if I looked him in the eyes, he’d see everything.
All of my broken pieces.
And I wouldn’t survive that.
He let me sit there like that for a long time without saying a word. But when he finally spoke, I wanted to run away. “Look at me, Xeniya.”
I pursed my lips, my face aching from holding everything in. I couldn’t do it. I just… he’d know everything. He’d see me.
“Please, Xen.”
No. I wanted to cry. But I also couldn’t deny him.
There was something about Severin Volkov that made me want to obey him, even when doing so was excruciating.
Because I trusted him, and sometimes I just liked letting go and being taken care of.
So I turned to face him, and when my eyes met his, I blinked. Hard.
His irises darkened and pierced my soul. He held my gaze for a long moment before reaching out and grasping my hand. I flinched, then hated myself for it. But he wasn’t fazed at all. Then he said six words that made it hurt even worse.
“I would do anything for you.”
How could he say that even after I flinched when he touched me?
I bit my lip. Embarrassment blossomed on my face, and I felt it in my burning cheeks. God, I couldn’t even be comforted by my best friend. I’d been fractured that badly. I wanted to whimper and curl into a ball, but I didn’t.
I locked everything away and asked, “You made sure you’d never get caught, right?”
“Yes, the cops will just think he drove his sports car off a bridge, and his body went missing,” he reassured me. “We made it look like a terrible accident. There is a sappy memorial for him on campus tomorrow. He was known for drunk driving. No one is even questioning a thing.”
“Good.” Relief loosened a knot inside of me. My pulse spiked. “You never get to leave me because of something as stupid as going to prison.”
“Yes, Zaya.” He rolled his eyes, and I hit him in the shoulder.
“I’m serious.”
“I know,” he said gravely. “And you will never leave me. Full stop.”
He leaned slightly toward me, unconsciously, and my entire body went rigid. Fuck. I was like a feral cat, jumping at any unexpected movement. Fuck. I hated myself for it. I peered up at him through my lashes, and I tensed even further. His eyes were a sea of troubled blue. He knew. He saw. Fuck.
My heart pounded against my ribcage.
I didn’t process what he had said for a whole minute, and then his words struck me through the chest.
Never leave me. Full stop.
Heat spread through my chest. I had never planned on leaving him.
But then I already had.
I left him in New York and came to Chicago. Had that affected him deeply?
I swallowed past the lump in my throat and nodded. “Okay, I won’t,” I said, my voice low.
An awkward silence passed between us, neither of us knowing what to say or do. I tapped my fingers on my leg, and the motion made me remember the flinch. Was I so fucking broken that I couldn’t even tolerate the touch of my best friend? The man who had skinned a man alive for me?
My embarrassment and self-loathing were like a noose, circling my throat and strangling me. It was too much. I had to get away from it. “Well, I guess I should leave.”
He didn’t move or say anything.
“Right, yeah, I’ll leave,” I said again, standing up.
“Are you okay, Zaya?” he asked, a deep concern lacing his voice.
No.
My nostrils flared, but I faced him. How could I tell him or anyone the depths of my fear and pain and stupidity? I never should have trusted Chad. I never should’ve taken a drink from him or let myself be alone.
It was all my fault, and I didn’t know how to make it better.
And everyone knew.
They knew how weak and stupid I was.
But worse than all of that, I struggled with being touched. Anytime someone so much as grazed me, it felt like my skin was on fire, and I wanted to peel it all off.
“I’m…” I gulped. “Yes. I am fine.”
“Liar,” he said in Russian. “You’re a liar, Zaya.”
Yes. I fucking was, because the truth was intolerable. The truth was pathetic, and I didn’t want anyone to see it or know just how deeply I was fractured. It was just drugs and an attempted rape. He didn’t even manage it. How could I be so deeply and irrevocably affected?
No man would ever trust me to have his back in a battle if he knew. My job, my role, everything was affected, and the truth would ruin me. But if I did nothing…
It would ruin me too. So the question became, did I trust Severin enough to hold this secret?
As I stared into the well of his blue eyes, I knew. I’d trust him with almost anything.
“I can’t be touched.” I rubbed my face and turned away. “Will you touch me?”
“Wait.” He blinked. “You want me to what?”
My hands trembled, and I slid them into my jeans pockets just to try and stop it from happening. “I need you to touch me.”
“I can’t do that, Xeniya.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
“You fuck a new girl a week, Severin.”
“That’s different.”
“I don’t want you to fuck me or want me.” The words scraped my throat on the way out. “I just need to be able to tolerate someone’s touch, and I trust you.”
His throat bobbed, but he said nothing.
“Please,” I begged. “I need this.”
He ran a hand down his face. “Fine.” He let out a long, exasperated sigh.
I stepped back over to him and stopped right before my knees hit his. He remained seated, and one of his hands reached out to grasp mine, but just before his fingertips touched my wrist, he stopped—hovering so close.
“Please,” I said, closing my eyes, my whole body rigid. When the pads of his fingers grazed my skin, I flinched. “Keep going.”
He ran his fingers up my arm, all the way to my collarbone, and I held my breath, every muscle in my body hard like granite. But he didn’t move any farther; he’d completely frozen.
No. He couldn’t stop there.
My eyes shot open. “Don’t stop.”
He stroked a finger up the column of my neck, and I shivered. My chest rose with quick, shallow breaths as his other hand found my waist. I jolted, and he stilled. I forced myself to remain beneath his hands.
Every muscle in his body looked tight enough to snap.
You can do this, Xen. You can handle this. Just stay in control. And I did.
“Continue,” I said, my voice strained, but it was starting to feel a little better… I thought.
“All right.” He spread his legs and pulled me by the waist against him, my torso becoming flush with his.
My body went rigid.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” My voice was unsteady. “Please, don’t stop.”
His hands stroked up my waist in answer.
I held my breath, but it was okay. This touch was okay.
Severin paused just before my breasts and searched my eyes.
I nodded, and he caressed his hands up the sides of them until he reached the uncovered curve of my cleavage.
His fingers danced along the soft flesh there.
I trembled, but this time not from fear.
I enjoyed that far too much.
I watched his fingers gently play with my flesh, fascinated.
My heart pounded.
The veins in his neck bulged, pulsing from all the restraint holding him back from escalating this any farther. Which I knew he wanted to. Severin wanted to fuck any beautiful woman. He especially had a thing for brunettes. Loved them.
So yeah, he would easily fuck me if I let him. But I never would. I wasn’t a notch in a bedpost.
I pinched my eyes closed for a moment, letting myself enjoy the tingling sensation in my bones and the heat rising in my chest. I loved the way he touched me, but it had to stop. I had to put an end to this… because I didn’t want to. Because I wanted to let him fuck me and make me forget Chad.
But that would only lead to more pain, so I opened my eyes and stepped back.
“Thank you,” I said, my throat hoarse. “That was very helpful.”
Then I turned on my heel and nearly ran out of the house, leaving Chad’s severed head with Severin behind me.