Chapter 22
Peighton
For a full week, I plan my escape the way a criminal plans a heist. Quietly. Patiently. Without a single misstep.
Gustav is still gone. He doesn’t care if I like him or not.
.. Maybe he didn’t trust himself not to break me further.
Maybe he didn’t trust me not to break him.
I don’t know. All I know is that the space he left behind was empty in a way I hadn’t expected, and that scared me more than his cruelty ever had.
Because I still miss the man who took my virginity. Even if it was all a lie.
My bag is packed under my bed. Not my suitcase, just a canvas backpack with essentials.
A passport. Cash. A change of clothes. A burner phone I bought off a student.
The clothes I brought to Russia? All of it stays behind so my absence looks temporary, like a girl who stepped out and lost track of time. Not a mafia wife running for her life.
Saturday night arrives. Everyone is going into town for dinner and drinks.
I pretend I’m sick, hand pressed to my forehead, voice weak.
They accept it easily. Micha offers to bring soup later, but I tell him not to worry.
When the last footsteps fade down the hall, my heart thunders so loudly I fear someone might hear it from outside.
I put on red lipstick, a color I never wear. It makes me look like someone else. I braid my hair tight, tug my hood up, and slip the window open. The cold slaps me immediately, searing my cheeks and lungs with the sharp, metallic sting of winter.
Southern California feels like a dream compared to this.
I lower myself carefully, boots hitting frozen earth. My phone, factory-reset to erase any trackers Gustav or his men might have installed, shows the glowing map of the town. The train station is a little over a mile and a half. I can do that. I have to.
Snow starts falling harder as I move through the busy weekend streets, weaving through crowds of people bundled up. Laughter spills from tavern doors; the smell of roasted meat drifts through the air. I keep my head down, eyes fixed ahead, pulse fluttering with each step.
Then I feel it. Someone behind me. Too close. Too matched to my pace.
I glance back. A man in a black coat. Familiar posture. Familiar build.
Probably a Sokolov enforcer.
My stomach drops. They already know.
I duck into the nearest bar, slipping between bodies as fast as I can. I pretend to browse the wall of bottles, pretending I belong. The man passes the front windows without pausing.
Relief makes my knees weak.
I approach a heavy-lidded woman at the bar. “I need a ride to the train station,” I whisper. “Two hundred dollars.”
Her laugh is sharp. “This is Russia, sweetheart, not Uber.”
Before I can try again, a lanky man with sunken cheeks and a beanie leans in. “I’ll take you.”
I hesitate, but fear presses me forward. “Fine.”
We leave out the back. He leads me to a rust-eaten sedan that smells like cigarettes and pine cleaner. I get in anyway. We chit chat, but I mostly stare out the window, watching the forest go by.
Halfway down the lonely highway, headlights appear in the rearview mirror. Too fast. Too controlled.
My blood chills.
The car swerves around us, then jerks in front, forcing us off the icy road. We spin, slide, and slam into a snowbank.
My heart thunders, and my hand shakes as I reach for the door handle. My door jams. I claw it open with pure adrenaline and run.
Snow stings my face. The forest rises ahead, dark, jagged, and seemingly endless. However, before the wreck, my phone showed I’m close. So close. If I can get to the train station, I have a chance. I rush ahead into the wilderness, phone clutched tightly, bag slung over my shoulder.
Boots trail me, but this time, I use the shadows cleverly. Men’s figures run by without a second glance.
Thank God. Keep going, Peighton.
I check my phone. Half a mile that way. I can do that. I tread toward the pin, praying under my breath.
A howl. Very close.
I freeze.
Two wolves emerge from the shadows. Then a third.
Their eyes glint like amber coins as their bodies circle, low and hungry.
They nip at my ankles, my jacket, my hands.
I shove one with my forearm, but it lunges again, teeth sinking into my arm.
Pain flares bright and dizzying. Another clamps onto my ankle and drags.
I scream.
A gunshot cracks the night. One wolf drops. The others whirl toward the shooter.
Gustav.
What the—
He fires again and again, face carved from ice and fury. The remaining wolves scatter into the darkness. My breath comes in ragged sobs as he approaches through the snow, boots crunching, eyes locked on me.
“When will you learn the forest will be your grave, not your salvation?”
“When I’m not running from you or your awful world!” I crab-walk backward until a boulder stops me. My limbs shake. Blood streaks my arm and leg. “Please,” I sob. “Please let me go. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be here. I’ll never fit in. I’ll never be what you want.”
He crouches, silent.
“Peighton—”
“Russia isn’t for me,” I choke out. “We’re not compatible. We never were.”
He studies my face long enough to make me tremble harder. Snow gathers on his jacket. His breath clouds the air. Still, he doesn’t speak.
Desperate, I whisper, “Tell everyone you killed me. Say I tried to run and you punished me. You won’t look weak. No one will question you.”
His head tilts, subtle. Interested.
“That’s good advice,” he murmurs, voice soft as frost. “So why can’t you advise me in private... and behave in public?”
My breath stutters. He’s not angry. Not threatening. Not punishing.
“Because I tried. I’m not what you want,” I whisper.
“You are my wife,” he says simply. “I want you by my side.”
“Duty isn’t enough for me,” I say before I can swallow the truth. “I hate this life. I want a new one.”
Snowflakes land on my lashes. He stands, scoops me into his arms as if I weigh nothing, and carries me toward the road. My ankle throbs. My arm bleeds. My heart feels like it’s trying to crawl up my throat.
In the backseat of the car waiting for us, he pulls me close, breath warm on my ear. “It may not feel like it, but you are what I want. And I am what you want.”
I narrow my eyes and study his face. His eyes are warm, his touch gentle, his voice calm. Where’s the tyrant I last saw?
My stupid heart stutters, as if it believes this is the man from my wedding night.
I crush that sense of hope.
“You’re not what I want,” I assure, folding my arms defensively.
“Really? Prove it.” His hand slips under the waistband of my pants.
I gasp as his cold fingers touch my skin.
“Gustav!”
“Your husband,” he corrects. “Prove to yourself you don’t want me, mishka.”
He doesn’t rush. His fingers move slow, dragging over the sensitive parts of me like he’s memorizing them.
My breath stutters. I arch without meaning to. My body moves for him even when my mind screams that I should resist, that this isn’t the time, that I should be furious or afraid.
But he touches me like I’m something he already burned the world down to keep.
A shaky sound escapes me. Embarrassing. Needy. He hears it like a private prayer.
“Peighton...” His voice is wrecked, deep, trembling with a hunger he’s trying and failing to leash. His lips brush my ear. “You can’t run from me.”
His fingers slide deeper. My hips jerk. Shame heats my face. I’m hurt, bloodied, terrified — and I’m wet for him anyway.
Because it’s him. My first. The man who took a piece of me and apparently hasn’t given it back.
“I don’t want—” I start, but my voice breaks when he circles my clit just right. My hand shoots to his wrist, not to stop him, but to steady myself. His breath hits my neck, hot and desperate.
“You ran,” he growls softly. “And still, your body begs for me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. A sob catches in my throat. I don’t know if it’s from pain or want. Maybe both.
He presses his forehead to the back of my shoulder, panting quietly, like he’s the one on the edge of coming undone.
“Do you feel what you do to me?” His hips roll forward, and his hard shaft rubs against my ass. Slow. Controlled. Maddening. “I should punish you. I should drag you home and lock every door.”
His fingers work me faster, firmer, until my back arches.
“But I’m not going to,” he whispers. “Not tonight. Tonight I touch you like this... because I can’t stop myself. Because you’ve forgotten what marriage means to me.”
My climax rises sharp and sudden, terror and relief tangling in my veins, twisting into something filthy and sweet.
“Gustav—” My voice cracks, breaking on his name.
“Let go,” he commands. “Right here. Right now. For me.”
The words hit me harder than his touch. I fall apart with a cry that sounds too much like surrender.
He groans, long and guttural, as if my pleasure drags him under with me. His forehead presses to my spine. His free hand fists in my shirt like he’s clinging to life itself.
When the last tremor leaves my body, he pulls his fingers out slowly, reverently, and brings them to his mouth. He closes his eyes as he tastes me.
“I will never let you leave me again,” he murmurs, almost tender.
Then he reaches into his coat and pulls out the gift-wrapped box.
“Micha said Christmas is important to you. Fine. Here.”
As I’m still catching my breath, I rip the paper with slow hands.
My heart trips.
Inside is a necklace. A silver locket with our wedding photo inside.
“It was the best day of my life. And night,” he says quietly. “I know we’re very different... but we have something. I do want someone I can trust, and one day, I hope that person is you.”
My eyelids droop. Exhaustion weighs down every limb. I stretch out on the seat and lower my head onto his lap.
“I didn’t expect you to run,” he murmurs, like he still wants an explanation.
I give none.
He wants to trust me, but I can’t trust a madman. I’m puddy in his hands, but those are the same hands that scare me to my core. That make me run.
Love is not born from fear. Neither is trust.
Thus, I fall asleep to that confession, warm against his thigh, the necklace pressed in my palm like a precious memory. There is no use running now.
I will, though. I must. I just need to plan better.
But how?