by Bethany-Kris
Demyan’s brows furrowed in his thoughts, and it pissed Roman off like nothing else that his father wasn’t hearing him first.
Roman glared at the others in the room, growling under his breath, “Get out. Now. Leave us alone.”
That caught Demyan’s attention, making him meet his son’s eye. However, he didn’t protest the demand, and the two of them waited in silence until every other person in the room was gone. They were finally alone.
It took every ounce of focus and strength he had to stay balanced, and not let the pain stabbing throughout his body take control, but Roman did it. He had to. “I need you to hear what I’m saying. Karine has to be moved. Dima wasn’t fucking around tonight. She isn’t safe out there, with three bulls watching over the whole property. It’s only a matter of time before they find her.”
Demyan stared at his son, then nodded. “I hear you, and I also know she’s as safe there tonight as she was today ... otherwise, I doubt the first move Dima would have made was to accost you on the highway, Roman. It seems like you haven’t heard me, no? Something’s not right here.”
“Nothing is fucking right here. If what he did to me was a warning, what will he do to Karine if he can get his hands on her?”
“That’s exactly where my question lies,” Demyan continued, before moving to grab the wheelchair as Roman started to fall backward. His father said nothing as he rested into the chair, and his swimming vision cleared. “It doesn’t make sense to do what he did—not if you consider we have business between our organizations. It was just violence. Just for the girl. Why?”
“Because Dima is a fucking lunatic.” Roman managed through clenched teeth as he massaged the pad of his thumb hard into his temple to relieve the pressure there.
“I don’t think that’s it. I think they’re hiding something, and we need to find out what it is.”
“We can work on finding out all their secrets, if you want to waste your time, but we need to keep Karine safe, first.”
Demyan narrowed his eyes at his son. “Karine will never be safe. The two of you will spend the rest of your lives looking over your shoulder if we don’t find out the why here, Roman. Why is this happening? If she just needs to be found, for everything to come to an end, then like you said, it’s only a matter of time. Even we won’t be able to keep her hidden from them forever.”
Roman hated how sharp the clarity of his reality settled in on him in that moment. The truth was a cruel bitch in the way that he never really wanted to face it—life was just easier without the moral details involved. This wasn’t quite the same.
“You may think I don’t get it, but I do,” Demyan said, sighing as he regarded Roman still struggling with the throbbing ache of his concussion and every other injury. “I understand why you’re reacting the way you are right now. I don’t blame you for wanting to protect her, but you need to hear what I’m saying. There are two ways of dealing with this situation, and—”
“All I care about is keeping Karine safe.”
Even though he repeated the same words, Roman’s resolve slipped. What his father said made sense. Dima’s move was suspicious.
All wrong from the jump.
“Thing is, how did he even know where you were, Roman—who provided that info?” Then, Demyan shrugged, adding quietly, “You can try as hard as you want to keep her safe, but it won’t be forever. The smarter thing to do is to find out what is motivating them to raise hell to get this girl back. There has to be a reason for it. What is it—why could he find you, but not her?”
Roman closed his eyes, barely soothing the pain at the back of his head. He was trying to lie to himself—thinking he could do anything when he couldn’t barely fucking stand straight for longer than thirty seconds without wanting to puke. He couldn’t spring into action right now if necessary. Once again, Dima had made sure of it.
“All I know,” Roman uttered, each word slow and measured, “is that Karine doesn’t want to be with him. She made that very clear to me. He was never her choice.”
“And yet, she’s spoken for, which seems to be enough for him to do all of this, hmm? There’s something about this situation we don’t know, and maybe if we find that out, a lot of this will make sense. For now, we need to accept the fact that she is spoken for, and we can’t just run away from an agreement like that. Not in our world.”
Roman gritted his teeth until his molars ached. Just one more thing to cause him pain.
“Karine doesn’t belong to him. She’s already mine. In every way that fucking matters.”
He didn’t break his father’s stare. Demyan cleared his throat, clearly getting the hint.
Roman had taken her—not just once but many times since they first met. She had given herself to him, freely, in every way she wanted, and nobody could take that away from them. No prior agreement would change that or what it meant.
“She’s not going anywhere near him,” Roman muttered after a minute.
Demyan’s expression didn’t waver. “Well, you won’t know if you’re dead, son.”
Yeah.
There was that.
TWENTY
No matter how hard she tried or how long she stared into the dark shadows of her bedroom, Karine couldn’t get the image of blinking awake to Claire and Masha huddled over her. They’d patted cool facecloths against her face, hushed words shared between them as she came to and their attention had again turned on her.
Claire had been asking her for the month and year. Masha, on the other hand, only wanted to know how she was feeling. Karine couldn’t understand why—the only thing on her mind was Roman.
It was the stunned, wary gazes of the older women while they watched Karine where they had laid her on the bed, that she couldn’t quite forget. Their hesitance had only swirled her nerves and fear together, making her voice shake when she had asked, “Did you see Katina?”
Because she’d fought hard.
Knew that irrational fear wasn’t her own.
Karine tried.
It was all she could do.
She had tried.
Hope was a terribly dangerous thing, but she dared to feel it all the same. Karine couldn’t quite explain the way the exhausted joy flooded her when Claire had shaken her head, whispering only, “No.”
Her happiness didn’t last long.
Then, what was the problem?
No one seemed to want to answer that question. Even Jimmy had avoided Karine’s gaze when he slipped into the bedroom to bring Claire more wet facecloths. It felt like Karine had won a battle—keeping Katina at bay, even if she didn’t know how long it would last—only to lose another.
“Is Roman okay?” Karine had asked.
The catalyst couldn’t be avoided.
She had to know.
Claire had tried to brush the concern off, saying Roman had simply gotten into some trouble with his father. He wasn’t even supposed to be in Vermont in the first place, apparently. Except his mother’s words felt hollow—bare of any sadness, yes, but also lacking any realness, too.
She just wished, for once, people would stop treating her like a frail, pathetic creature and just fucking tell her the truth. She never got those answers, instead shuffled under fluffy, soft blankets that were too cold without someone else to share them with, and that’s where Karine had stayed.
Staring at the shadows for hours.
Thinking.
Her personal victory was dampened by the lingering unease she couldn’t quite shake. Karine couldn’t fall asleep, her mind spinning though she ignored it to drown in her own thoughts instead. Their bleak haven wasn’t much better, to be honest.
At least, with the late night, the lodge had quieted outside her bedroom door. Everyone seemed to be asleep, her chaos had passed, but what about the rest?
Where was Roman?
Why wouldn’t they tell her?
The knock on the door came so quiet that she missed it at first—until the door creaked open without the person on
the other side waiting for permission.
“Masha?” she called out.
But it wasn’t Masha.
Karine sprung up in bed, clutching the sheets tighter to her as a male figure sliced through the stream of light. Alec—one of the bulls who had been designated to watch her every move for the past weeks—entered the room without as much as a hello.
“What are you—”
He came towards her, his long, aggressive strides making Karine curl into herself until he was close enough to hold out a phone for her to take. The lit up screen was the only light between them, but it was enough for her to see the kindness in his face.
And the severe line knotting his brow, too.
Something had happened.
Or was happening.
Karine didn’t get the chance to ask.
“Here, take it. It’s Roman. You should speak to him,” Alec said.
Karine’s heart thudded to a stumbling stop as she plucked the phone out of Alec’s hand, still expecting some cruel joke to trick her out of the comfort she had just been offered. Wasn’t that the way of her world?
It sometimes felt like it.
She pressed the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be awake, babe. Are you okay?”
Roman’s unmistakable voice should have been enough to soothe Karine’s frazzled nerves, but instead, the jumpiness under her skin only increased to the point she had to exit the bed and safety of the sheets. Unconcerned about Alec, or the fact that her night clothes were simply made up of Roman’s oversized long sleeved shirt, the man simply turned his back to her. For a fleeting second, she felt bad for doubting him.
But she had more important things to consider.
Like the man on the phone.
“I’m okay—now that I know you’re okay.”
Roman’s dry chuckle crackled through the phone’s speakers, but it didn’t quite feel true, even when he replied, “I’m fine.”
“Fine is moot. What happened?”
Because clearly, something did.
“Dima found me. Made it a point that I acknowledged his arrival in New York.”
Karine’s gaze found the window where the shades hadn’t been pulled. Not that it mattered because there wasn’t any light for it to block out, and she was left staring at the blank canvas through the glass that was usually the lake in the day. Her voice didn’t feel like her own, though it was, when she asked, “What did he do?”
She really thought Roman would tell her the truth—though a part of her didn’t actually want him to. It was strange to constantly feel at war with herself. Whether it was the things she wanted, or needed—even her emotions.
Nothing felt sacred.
Controlled.
Hers.
But then Roman let out a hard breath, “I want to say it doesn’t matter, Karine, because it doesn’t, and I’m okay. I’m hoping that’s going to be a good enough answer for right now because we’re running out of time here.”
“For what?”
“To hide,” he murmured.
That coldness creeped in slowly, starting in her spine and then spilling into her belly. It soaked through her one limb at a time until Karine was frozen in place and wishing he didn’t mean what she thought he did.
“I just need to know if you trust me.”
Well ...
“That’s the easy part,” she replied. “It’s always been, Roman.”
“Okay.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Alec,” Roman said, making Karine check over her shoulder for the bull standing at the bedroom door. He had his back turned to her, trying to make it a point that he wasn’t eavesdropping on the conversation. She wondered if that was partly because he already knew what was about to be said.
“What about him?” she whispered in the phone.
“I want you to leave the lodge tonight. With him. He’s going to drive you to me. Just grab the few things you have, be extra quiet as you leave.”
Karine’s heart began racing in her chest all over again. She considered herself to be friendly with Alec—although she felt more comfortable with Jimmy, if she were being honest. That didn’t mean she wanted to be in a car alone with him for who knew how long.
When Karine remained silent on the phone, Roman added, “This is really important, Karine. It might be the only real chance I have to take you somewhere in a way no one will be able to find you except for the person with you. Me, I mean.”
“But—”
“It’s just a drive, babe. A drive to me. You can do that, can’t you?”
She clutched the phone tighter to her ear.
“Is this because of Dima?” she asked.
“He could seriously hurt you, Karine. And if he found me when I was supposed to be off the map, then that makes me think he’s only a few steps away from you.”
The swell of fear that swallowed Karine in one, heavy wave damn near put her to her knees. All it took was reality coming back to say hello one more time. Masha had been right—Karine was silly to think Dima wouldn’t be back.
Sometime.
Somehow.
He’d always been there.
Ready to hurt her.
“Karine,” Roman started to say, concern etching his voice a not higher.
He didn’t get to say anything more.
“He killed her,” she blurted out, hot tears prickling the backs of her eyelids as the darkest secret left her mouth. A truth that she had—for years—turned into a lie inside her mind. The mantra was easier than the memories. It was the first time she learned how to dissociate from her trauma.
It wasn’t real. It didn’t happen.
But it did.
Oh, it had.
She could see him now—Dima. The memory would forever be etched in her mind, but it was just a matter of making her mind hide it. Shuttering it away to someone else, somewhere else she didn’t have to see.
Except she couldn’t hide it now, wavering between the steady breaths of the man on the phone calling her name, and the memory pulling her under.
Karine could still smell the sugared rose perfume her sixteen-old-sister had sprayed lingering in the large closet where she liked to play sometimes. She’d been extra quiet so nobody knew she was in there—Katina shrieked like a devil whenever her little sister found something new to destroy.
Shoes.
Makeup.
Her favorite silk blouse.
Really, Karine only wanted to try them herself, and she loved Katina. More than anyone else in the world.
From where she played in the corner, she could see clearly through the crack of the French doors into her sister’s bedroom. It was the shadow that passed over the corner of Katina’s bed, where she’d haphazardly thrown her rose-gold comforter into a pile, that turned Karine into a statue.
Still, she could hear Roman.
Stuck between her past, and present.
He was there.
“Karine, what the fuck are you talking about—who killed her? Who is she?”
Her voice was faded.
In the background somewhere.
“Dima. He killed my sister.”
She was nine when it happened. Life had been so different before that night. Not better, just ... different.
There was silence between them. Stretching on while the shadow on the blanket grew larger, and Karine couldn’t hide away from the scene that had stayed buried for so long in her mind.
“I saw it happen,” she said, wanting Roman to know why. Why everything was so ... so very wrong. And why it had been that way for too long. “I was there.”
When she blinked, she was transported back to the walk-in closet, sugared-rose in the air, and charcoal staining her tiny fingertips. Her big sister was in the room, scribbling something in a sketchbook—Karine had stolen Katina’s other notepad to do her own drawing.
She hadn’t thought Katina would stay for as long as she did, leaving
Karine unable to sneak back out like she usually would without drawing attention. Instead, she sketched a picture of the old willow tree for her sister to find, but it probably wouldn’t look anything like Katina’s carefully crafted pieces of art. Not that the quality mattered—she pasted her creations all over her bedroom walls.
Annoying their father to death.
Not that Maxim cared much lately. He was too busy, never staying at home for long because the sight of his daughters reminded him of things he no longer had. Instead, the girls were raised by the servants and whatever nanny had been assigned to them for a time.
Karine had noticed the visitor in her sister’s room first—that approaching shadow didn’t catch her sister’s attention until it was already too late. Katina’s futile efforts to ask him to leave, his very presence enough to make her voice quake, didn’t work. It was the fear she heard from her sister that made Karine stay crouched in the closet, and not make a sound.
But it was the way she remembered seeing Dima watch the girls as they played in the halls of their home that kept her silent as the rapidly spiraling conversation outside the closet went from bad to worse. Some people just felt bad. He was one of those, but his father’s constant presence in Maxim’s life meant the man was around more often than he wasn’t.
Karine and Katina made every effort to stay away. Lately, even that didn’t work to keep hidden from Dima’s unnerving view.
The nine-year-old hiding behind thin doors with a visible crack in the middle didn’t know what to do when he’d hit Katina across the face after she’d dared to step off her bed toward him, demanding he leave. She saw the flash of her sister’s bare calf when she stumbled back to the bed, almost falling to the ground.
Except Dima was there, grabbing her.
In one second, he apologized.
In the next, he hit her when she cried.
The memory wasn’t as clear, then. Her mind couldn’t really process the scene of her sister’s trembling legs pinned against the side of her bed, or the sounds of muffled sobs. Despite her young age, she did comprehend pain, and she couldn’t get her hands to cover her ears good enough not to hear ... she couldn’t squeeze her eyes shut tight enough to keep the burned images away.