8. The Confession #2
Her body convulses, pussy milking my cock, and I follow a heartbeat later, burying myself to the hilt, filling her, claiming her from the inside out.
I collapse against her, my face in her neck, shaking. I'm actually shaking.
"I love you," I gasp. "I love you. Even when you hate me. I love you."
She doesn't answer.
She just wraps her arms around me and holds on.
We stay there for a long time.
Her head is on my chest. My arms are wrapped around her. The greenhouse is cold, but neither of us moves. We just lie on the floor, surrounded by my dead wife's orchids, pretending we're not falling apart.
I trace the bruises on her hips. Nathan's marks. Now mine too, layered over them, covering them.
"I didn't know," I say again. "About the children. I swear to you, Monika, I didn't know."
She doesn't respond.
She sits up. She looks at me, her eyes red-rimmed, her face pale. She looks exhausted. She looks broken.
"What are you going to do?" she asks.
"I don't know."
"You have to stop him."
"I know."
"Do you?" She stands, pulling her dress down, smoothing her hair. "Because I've been living in this house for a year, and I've watched you let him do whatever he wants. I've watched you let Gabriel slip away. I've watched you lose control of everything you've built."
"I know."
"Then do something." She's crying again. "Do something, Aleksander. Stop him. Save her. Save all of them. Be something other than what you are."
I stand. I reach for her. She lets me.
"I will," I say. "I'll try."
"Trying isn't enough."
"I know." I touch her face. "But it's all I have."
She leaves me in the greenhouse.
I stand there for a long time, surrounded by orchids, and I think about everything she said. Everything she accused me of. Everything she's right about.
I am a monster. I've always been a monster. I built this empire on blood and fear and the bodies of people who got in my way.
But I love her. I love her more than I've ever loved anything. More than the empire. More than my sons. More than myself.
And I'm going to save her.
I'm going to save her from my son. I'm going to save her from this house. I'm going to save her from me.
Even if it destroys everything.
Even if it destroys me.
I walk back to the house.
The hallways are dark, the servants asleep, the portraits watching me pass with their painted eyes. I feel them judging me. I feel them reminding me of all the things I've done, all the people I've hurt, all the lives I've destroyed.
I don't care. I'm past caring.
I stop outside Monika's door. I press my palm against the wood. I feel the warmth of her on the other side.
"I'm going to fix this," I whisper. "I don't know how. But I'm going to fix this."
I go to Nathan's room.
I don't knock. I never knock. I push open the door and find him sitting at his desk, a glass of whiskey in his hand, the map of the city spread out in front of him.
He looks up when I enter. His eyes are dark, unreadable.
"Father," he says. "How unexpected."
"Don't." My voice is cold. "Don't pretend you don't know why I'm here."
He sets down the glass. He stands. He faces me, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression a mask of calm.
"I assume Monika told you."
"She told me everything."
"About the child? About the deal?" He shrugs. "It's business, Father. Just business."
"It's child trafficking. That is a line that no one in this family has ever crosses. And I will not have my name associated with it at all."
"It's profit." He says the word like it's the only thing that matters. "The market wants what the market wants. I'm just supplying demand."
"You're supplying death." I step closer. "You're supplying pain. You're supplying everything I tried to keep out of this family."
"You failed." He says it simply. "You tried to build an empire without getting your hands dirty. You tried to be the good patriarch while the world burned around you. But the world doesn't work that way. The world is built on blood, and the only way to survive is to spill more than everyone else."
"I didn't raise you to be a monster. We deal in adults, Nathan. We do not traffic children."
"You didn't raise me at all." His voice is sharp. "You were too busy with the empire. Too busy with your grief. Too busy with Elena's ghost to notice that your sons were growing up without a father."
I feel something crack inside me.
I slap him.
The sound echoes through the room. His head snaps to the side. He touches his cheek, where the red mark is already blooming, and when he looks back at me, there's something in his eyes I've never seen before.
Respect.
"You've still got some fight left in you," he says. "I was beginning to think you'd lost it."
"I'm going to stop you."
"Try."
"I'm going to stop you, Nathan. I'm going to tear down everything you've built. I'm going to save those children. I'm going to save Monika. And I'm going to save whatever's left of this family."
Nathan smiles. It's a beautiful smile. A terrible smile.
"You can't save anyone," he says. "You couldn't save Elena. You couldn't save Mother. You couldn't even save yourself."
"I'm going to try."
"Trying isn't enough."
I stare at him. Those were Monika's words. He doesn't know that. He's just throwing them at me, trying to hurt me, trying to break me.
But he's wrong. Trying is all I have. And I'm going to use it.
I leave.
I walk through the house, my footsteps echoing on the marble, my mind racing with plans. I don't know how to stop him. I don't know how to save the children. I don't know how to save Monika.
But I'm going to try.
I'm going to try until there's nothing left of me.
I stop in front of Elena's portrait. Her dark eyes look down at me, sad and knowing. She always knew what I was. She loved me anyway.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm sorry for all of it."
She doesn't answer.