Chapter 21
Peighton
The next day, my cheek throbs with the welt the belt left, a bruise in the shape of humiliation. I keep my hair tucked forward in hopes it covers the mark. Keira doesn’t comment on it as we pick at our lunch.
Just then, a group of women walk by, snickering and whispering. Literal mean girls.
“Ugh,” I whine to Keira. “Everyone hates me.”
“They do not,” she replies, unconvincingly.
I haven’t broached the subject, but it’s been weighing on me all day.
“Did you know?” I whisper, then angrier, “Did you know I was about to be attacked and humiliated last night?”
She looks at her tray and murmurs, “Not until moments before when they told me to leave. I assumed.”
I scoff, loud and indignant. “You should have warned me, you back-stabbing—”
She gawks, mouth open, then snaps, “You did this to yourself. You’re prideful and spoiled.” She stands and clutches her bag close. “And maybe others would like you if you didn’t act like everything Russian is beneath you.”
I shoot to my feet to be eye-to-eye. “It is beneath me. It’s an outdated hellhole.”
She narrows her eyes and storms out.
I groan, because I think I just lost my only female friend in this godforsaken country.
Three weeks pass.
I hang my head and trudge outside. Micha and I walk the narrow cobblestone path along the St. Andrews grounds. He escorts me to my Russian language class, which I am desperate to learn. No more ambushes. Bezhat means run. My husband told me to run. Asshole.
I hug myself, brooding.
Snow blankets the lawns beyond the walkway, a soft white layer swallowing every sharp edge. The air smells woodsmoke. It should feel peaceful, but all I feel is trapped.
Micha is the closest thing I have to a friend nowadays. Keira won’t talk to me. Much like my husband who haven’t spoken to since that night.
Students pass us, whispering behind gloved hands. The girls look at me with pity. I can’t tell if they’re pleased the American girl was put in her place or if they’re horrified a man like Gustav is my husband. It doesn’t matter. My reputation feels fractured beyond repair. I feel fractured.
“I miss home,” I say. “Not just the place. The... feeling of it. Holidays always came with comfort back there. Warmth. Familiar things.” My breath escapes in a white puff. “I missed Thanksgiving. Tyra sent me pictures of the table she set. My dad fried a turkey. Everyone was there except me.”
Micha listens. He always does. His steps crunch beside mine, slow and steady.
He’s the only person here besides Gustav I spend real time with, but with Micha, the world feels less brutal.
He’s loyal, assigned to me specifically, and unlike Keira or Petyr or anyone else, he has no reason to manipulate me.
“I know it isn’t the same,” he says, his voice gentle. “December is different here. Less sentimental. More dutiful.”
“Dutiful,” I repeat, staring ahead. “That’s a perfect word for this life.”
A life I didn’t choose, though I can’t pretend Gustav dragged me into it unwillingly anymore. My heart made its choice the moment I realized I loved the man beneath the madness.
Or who I thought he was.
Now I’m uncertain if that man still exists or if he ever did.
“I cry at night,” I say quietly. “Every night. I try not to, but it sneaks out anyway. Everything feels too much. Too frightening. And Gustav...” I pause, because even his name sends conflicting signals through my body.
“He’s so cruel. And dark. And I keep wondering if I was delusional to think I could bring him back to who he was.
What if there’s nothing left to bring back? Or never was.”
Micha’s silence stretches, and that scares me more than if he had spoken too quickly.
“Gustav is under an unusual amount of pressure,” he finally says. “He is watched by everyone. Rival gangs, the Council, even the men under his own command. It changes a person in ways outsiders do not always see.”
“That sounds like an excuse.”
“It is not meant to be. Only context.”
“Does the context include him being...” I hesitate. “Insane?”
Another silence. This one heavier.
“You asked me once,” Micha says softly, “if you would have a marriage like an American one. With affection for affection’s sake. With softness that doesn’t need to be earned.” His brow tightens. “I do not think Gustav is capable of that kind of marriage.”
The words land with a cold finality. They feel like stones burying me alive.
“So I’m supposed to accept misery?” I ask. “Embrace it? Pretend it is romantic?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “You are supposed to understand it may not look like the marriages you have known. But that does not mean you will not find your own kind of happiness. Your own rhythm.” Then, more quietly, “Many women in our world learn that love and survival sometimes look alike.”
We step beneath a stone bridge where the arch shields us from the wind. He turns to face me. My eyes burn, and I try to blink the heat away before he notices, but he does.
“Peighton, it’ll be okay,” he says softly.
I hug my arms around myself, trying to maintain the last little bit of dignity I have.
“I keep thinking maybe I can fix him. That if I try hard enough, I’ll get the version of him I liked... if only for a night. Before everything spiraled. Before he hated me. Before the punishments.” My throat tightens. “But now I’m not sure that moment was real. Or if I just wanted it to be.”
Micha hesitates only a second before lightly touching my arm. When I don’t move, he steps closer and wraps me in a hug. A real one. Warm and human. For a beat, I freeze, terrified someone will see, terrified of another punishment, another misunderstanding.
But he murmurs, “No one is here. You’re safe.”
And I break.
Not loudly or dramatically. Just a small, helpless sound that dissolves inside his coat as my forehead drops to his chest. His embrace tightens.
It is nothing like Gustav’s fierce grip, nothing like the claiming hold I’ve become accustomed to.
It is tender. Quiet. The kind of comfort I forgot existed.
For an instant, I remember being close to Gustav in my bed, the very first time he really touched me. The weight of his hand on my hip, the warmth of his breath on my neck. I thought it meant something. That it was the beginning of something safe.
Now, I’m not sure it ever was.
When Micha finally pulls back, he searches my face with a careful, almost sad expression.
“Gustav was not always like this,” he says. “Once he was... normal. Or as normal as a man raised in this world can be. But he carries pressure most men cannot imagine. And he has very few people he trusts.” His gaze softens. “One day, you might be one of them.”
I swallow hard. “I’m sure I’ll fail at this rate.”
“What if you don’t?” he counters.
I want to believe that. I want to believe I can help him climb out of the darkness instead of sinking into it with him.
“What if I leave him? Divorce him?” I whisper, but I already know the answer.
His jaw tenses. “You wouldn’t survive a week,” he says, not unkindly. “And the shame it would cause him... for his wife to leave him. You know this.”
I do. Mobsters rarely divorce. Wives disappear. And that truth is heavier than everything else.
But I still want to escape. I don’t reveal that, though. Maybe Tyra can help me hide.
We walk out from under the bridge. Snow begins to fall, slow, quiet flakes drifting down like ash. I tilt my head back and let one land on my cheek. Weightless little thing but it crushes me.
I’m trapped. Needed like a political prop. I’m ready to be human again. Not a thing to be used for politics.
I want to run. Change my name. Start over somewhere far away from this world of ice.
I’m leaving.
I have to.
Soon.