Chert. He could not find his north in all this mess. Should he be angry or pity her? Should he want to keep her, or help her find her peace in the afterlife? Was he really thinking of helping her murder Lisko when he’d worked so hard to bring the man to human justice? His caped-crusader fury returned in a flash when he thought of her lying in that doorway, or worse, lying dead in her own blood, having sacrificed herself for the no-good Fedir.
He sat next to her, took hold of her wrists, searching her face. “Katya, why is all your anger for Fedir and not for yourself?”
Her brow furrowed and her head tilted just a hair, all innocence and perplexity. “I…he was…my savior. He loved me.”
He winced to hear her say it. “All those lies are not love.”
The crease in her forehead deepened, and she curved in on herself.
He wished he could take it back. The man’s love had mattered to her, whether he liked it or not.
“You know, I hate Lisko for killing you, but you only hate him for killing Fedir.”
There it was. Hunched like a hedgehog, she began to tremble with the mara’s power. But he’d had enough of this bloodthirsty ghost wreaking havoc on his sense of right and wrong.
“Love yourself too, Katya. And while you’re at it, stand up to the mara, tell her you’re going to find another way to get your justice.”
She’d balled her hands into fists, squeezed them so hard her knuckles turned white. “It won’t work, Nikolai.” Her gaze darted to where he’d put the slip of paper with Sonya’s phone number on it.
He reached for it, crumpled it up, and shoved it into his pocket. “You are not calling them, and you are not bringing Lisko here where my niece lives. I promised I’d protect her.”
Katya uncurled herself, sitting up straight, her fine features arranged into a fierce expression, showing far more strength than he’d seen from her before. “I would never endanger Dariya.”
Some knot in his gut softened.
Chert. This is what he’d missed in a decade of bachelorhood—the slippery impossibility of saying and doing the right thing where women were concerned.
“I know you wouldn’t, not on purpose. But he’d do anything to protect himself. I don’t want him anywhere near her.”
“Nikolai, I must do something.” Swirls of dark, mesmerizing power flowed from her words, and it flicked him on like a switch. “You promised me you would help.”
He swallowed, trying to steal himself against the siren’s song, even though it drew his blood to his skin and his cock, heating him, tuning him to her every desire, assuring him that obeying her would bring him unadulterated pleasure.
“I know I did,” he ground out. His body longed to fall at her feet and give her anything, everything she desired. And his stubborn heart longed too—for some way to help. His conscience alone resisted, immune to her powers of seduction. “But I didn’t know what you were asking for, and you didn’t tell me the truth.”
“You will help me.” She ordered him, and unlike the night before, there was no irony, no implied request that he take control. But along with the steely siren’s command, her fear shimmered in her eyes, and it spoke to his heart, coaxed that organ to trust it could mediate between his acquiescing libido and his rebellious conscience.
“Fine,” he said, in spite of his better judgment and everything he believed about right or wrong and the very narrow band of gray area in between. “But we aren’t out of time yet, and I’m not out of blood. With the trial, Lisko isn’t going anywhere. Promise me you’ll wait, and I’ll think of something.”
He’d track down this Sonya himself, or some of those meticulous occultists on Wikipedia, or maybe some priests who knew how to exorcise maras and send them peacefully on to their eternal rest. There had to be some way other than killing Dmitri Lisko. Because that medieval sort of retribution was destroying his country, and only a legal decision in favor of Lisko’s many victims would balance the scales of the universe. He had to believe that, in spite of the bloodthirsty ghost living inside this woman he wanted and had come to care for so much.
But was that justice worth damning her to eternal suffering?
“There’s no other way.” Her voice was a blend of her normal tones and the siren song he now both hated and loved.
“Trust me enough to give me a little more time, Katya. And if I can’t find another way… I’ll help you kill him.”
He’d spent the last decade digging himself out of his fatal mistake of burying a story that had cost a kid her life. If he did this for Katya, God knew how long it would take him to stop hating himself.
A shrill scream pierced the room. Was someone else dying in this damned building?
“Kolya! Oh my God! How did you—?” Dariya appeared at the door, swung it open but instantly covered her eyes behind a palm. “Are you two decent?”
“Yes.” A chuckle almost penetrated his black mood.
She held her laptop out at arm’s length. “How did you do it?”
“Do what?” Katya dropped her knees and let her feet dangle off the bed.
“Femme Fatale agreed to let Kolya interview them, and I get to go.”
“Go?” Katya glanced at Nikolai with one brow raised.
“They’re very secretive. They only do interviews in the backroom of a particular coffee shop. If Dariya wants to go, she has to meet them there. I take it you’re up for it?”
She wore the first full-blown smile he’d seen since her mother’s death, all teeth and youthful exuberance. “Yes.”
Nik glanced at Katya, who wore her own smile, more subdued but clearly proud. She’d inspired the idea, and if it worked, it was just one more reason to admire her when what he should be doing was bracing himself to say good-bye.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Yuchenko had sent him a picture of a booking photo for a Theodor Anatoly, alias Fedir Antipin. Charged with possession.
Chapter 19
Foreboding tingled up Katya’s spine as Nikolai frowned at his phone. Somehow she was certain the message conveyed bad news, though not of what sort. Had there been a development in the trial? Had Femme Fatale already canceled on him?
He handed her the phone. Its screen showed a booking photo of Fedir standing in front of a height chart, holding a number. The phone buzzed in her hand and a lengthy text paragraph appeared from someone named Yuchenko. “This arrest was for possession with intent. There’s also one for assault. And an outstanding warrant—suspected involvement of a kidnapping with the Belovs.”
Nikolai had been right. Fedir was a drug dealer and a kidnapper, an associate of the men he had saved her from.
The mara fluttered inside her, threw herself against the walls of Katya’s body. Katya held firm, tried not to collapse under the barrage. If only she could be free of the ghoul, could discover her own emotions without an angry creature attempting to steer them. She reached for the edge of the bed, beyond her arm’s length, and shuffled to it, falling down heavily.
“Are you okay?” Dariya was there at her side. “Who’s that?” She pointed at the phone.
Nikolai came to his niece’s elbow. “Let’s give Katya some space. She just got some bad news. I’ll make coffee.”
She drew her knees up and lay down on her side, curled into a fetal position. Why did seeing the picture hurt so much worse? And those words, right there on the screen next to his narrow face, his bovine eyes. She’d never really thought him smart enough to lie to her.
At the door, when Dariya had gone out ahead, he turned back to her and pointed at the phone. “I’m sorry, Katya. But it matters. Tell the ghost it matters.”
With the gentle click of a door carefully closed by Nikolai, the mara frenzied inside her, shaking Katya so hard her teeth rattled. Like the stroke of an axe to her skull, pain splintered through her brain. Ripping, tearing, as if the mara wanted out. If Katya could let her without a vivisection, she would gladly free the irate spirit.
&nb
sp; Katya put her hands to her temples. She’d been possessed by a vengeful ghost who’d just learned the one meant to be avenged was not a noble hero after all. Katya couldn’t blame the mara for trying to break out. She wanted out too.
Now Lisko’s words to Fedir that night made sense. He’d broken some criminal code, had brought his death upon himself. There was no justice to be had in killing his murderer, and yet killing him seemed to be Katya’s only way out of this ghostly existence of being trapped and dependent on blood.
She’d died for a liar, a drug dealer, a kidnapper. And now that she knew the truth, the mental lines she’d drawn around the shape of her character and personality became fuzzy and loose. She’d been needy enough to trust a gangster, had even berated herself for not loving him more.
The first time she’d seen Fedir, she’d been in fear for her life. The Belovs knew their game—how to keep her disoriented, distressed, fragile. They spoke of her fate in front of her, that she would bring an outlandish price.
One had taunted her. “If your father knew the price you would bring, would he have sold you himself to pay his debts?”
She spat at the man, but secretly, she wasn’t sure.
And then Fedir had rescued her, had killed two of the men to do it. She’d never thought they could have been his friends.
Her time with him had been the best four months of her life, but it had been a lie.
The skull-splitting headache intensified, the pain curdling her stomach. She’d had migraines like this as a teenager. Back then, the only thing that had eased the crushing pain had been a hot shower and pitch-blackness. She heaved her legs off the bed and slid down, coming to her knees on the soft rug. From there, she crawled to the door and across the hall.
Without rising to turn on the lights, she closed the door. After four months of living there and a year haunting the bathroom, she knew every fixture and piece of furniture by heart and had no need to see. She turned on the water, just shy of full heat, and when warm steam hit her face, she crawled in still wearing her clothes.
In a torrent of self-loathing and scalding heat, the clues pounded down upon her, all the little things she’d ignored and brushed aside. The phone calls he went outside to take. Bonuses from work that came as wads of cash. And there was the gun. That day he’d killed the Belovs’ henchman to escape with her, he’d brought it home and hidden it in the cabinet that now held Sofiya’s spice rack. There was a very good chance the gun was still hidden in the shelf’s false bottom. When she’d watched, invisible in her ghost form as their belongings had been removed from the apartment, no one had touched that one.
She’d been a blind fool, refusing to see the truth, and now, the mara trying to claw its way out of her soul was payment for her naivety. As if the spirit had talons, it tore at her insides, scratched at the inner surface of her skull while the hot water poured over her scalp.
The ghost’s once incessant demand that she kill Lisko had become a shrill, wordless scream. The sound of a creature trapped and hungry in a cage without a key.
All because Katya was a fool.
Fedir had been so kind. They’d played board games together and watched music videos. She’d summarized the stories of great novels to him over dinner, and he’d praised her as if reading books were a super power. She’d begun to think of herself as good enough. She’d grown stronger. She’d even begun to speak louder, because he was always asking her to repeat her whispers, gently altering the hushed way she’d spoken in her parents’ home so that she never competed for the spotlight.
He’d helped her find her voice, her spine—and that’s why she’d thrown herself in front of that bullet. Only to discover who he really was.
Now it made sense that he’d warned her to stay inside his apartment, to stay hidden from her parents and their self-aggrandizing search for her as well as from the Belovs. Now it seemed like he’d been hiding her to protect himself. Those ruthless brothers must never have learned Fedir had killed their men. Was that why Lisko had been sent? To make him pay for stealing her?
Lisko.
The mara grew still, confused.
Katya pictured his smug grin at the press conference, and the ghost remained calm. Thank God. She breathed in steamy lungfuls of air, blessed relief.
But if the vengeful spirit possessing her no longer hated Fedir’s killer, what was Katya supposed to do?
Like a supernova, the overhead light flipped on with a blistering brightness. She squeezed her eyes shut. Stay at bay, she begged her headache, and her mara.
“Katya? What are you doing in here in the dark?” The sound of the curtain rings scraping the rod told her he’d shoved it aside. “Chert, you’re soaked.”
She couldn’t risk opening her eyes. “That’s usually what happens in the shower.”
“Yes, but not when you’re dressed.”
“I had a migraine. The shower is the only thing that really helps them.”
He turned off the water, and she instantly began to shiver as her wet clothes cooled to the temperature of the air. But then he wrapped her in a towel and his strong arms, and she grew warm, just as she did from his blood.
“I’m sorry I tossed that picture at you like that. I know it’s hard to face the truth about Fedir.” Nikolai rubbed warming friction on her upper arms.
He was apologizing to her?
“It’s okay.” And for the moment, it was. The mara remained calm, soothed as usual by the distracting maleness of Nikolai. “I have to know the truth, so I can figure out the right path to take.”
He brushed aside her wet hair and tugged her tunic up, exposing her skin to the cool air. He helped her peel out of the clothes until she stood before him naked. For a moment, she felt self-conscious, feared that the chemistry between them would ignite and she would lose her flimsy hold on her pain and the mara’s confused fury.
But he wrapped her tightly in the towel again and nuzzled her hairline with his nose. “I’ve been out there trying to play it cool with Dariya while my heart attempted to hammer its way out of my throat worrying about you in here.”
She sank deeper against him. His big hands held her fast, cradling her firmly. His touch held no expectation, only to care and comfort her, in spite of the way she’d put them at odds by withholding her intentions toward Lisko.
“Thanks for coming back to check on me.” She laced her arms around his neck and drew him closer
“The shower ran for a long time.” His lips moved near her ear, stirring her drying hair with his warm breath. “I worried you’d gone ghost.”
“Yet here I am, still flesh and blood.” She brought one of his hands up to cup her breast under the towel.
His fingers remained slack and his body went deadly still. Crap, had she used the siren voice on him?
“Katya, it’s been a hell of a morning. You’re clearly upset, in pain maybe. I don’t want—”
She silenced him with a kiss. The growing erection against her hip proved he did want her, even if he would also prefer to avoid the extra helping of emotional upheaval.
He parted his lips and let her tongue into his mouth as his hands conformed to the contours of her breast, his thumb coming up to circle her nipple.
Then he paused. “Are you sure this is okay?”
“The more confusing things are, the more I want to be close to you. What you make me feel isn’t confusing at all.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, but a tiny crease appeared between his brows. He bent to kiss her neck. “I have to go to work soon, but maybe you could help me get cleaned up before I leave?”
Her towel had fallen open, and he brought his other hand up so he could cup both her breasts, teasing her nipples with firm little twists even as he nibbled on the top of her shoulder. All of which was rendering her brain a little useless. “Clean?”
“You know. In the shower, with soap, and water. But no clothes this time.”
She imagined their sudsy, sl
ippery bodies moving together under the water, her hands gliding over his broad chest, stroking his hard-on the way he had stroked it himself.
“Oh, I see. You need a little help?”
“I do. And by my count, you’re about a year overdue for a shower. I think I better check behind your ears.”
She imagined him behind her, gripping her hips while she braced herself against the wall to take his every thrust. “Yes. You better check them right away.”
Chapter 20
Nikolai walked through the brisk morning toward the metro station. His body still burned with the imprint of Katya, her palms pressed against the shower wall, her hip bones fitted into his hands, her pretty ass tilted upward for him, rivulets of water cascading over her smooth skin, a thousand times more beautiful than anything her father could have sculpted. They’d made love slowly, every move deliberate, the careful savoring of a lover. It was a reconciliation of sorts, to the way fate had put them in such an untenable situation. But their bodies refused to be enemies, even if their consciences were at odds.
She’d sat down to have breakfast with Dariya and he’d kissed them both on the top of their heads. Katya had turned her face up to him, her smile an invitation to a more intimate brush of the lips.
He’d shaken his head, grinning, and she’d blushed as if she’d read his mind, that if he got started, he wouldn’t want to stop.
He was half a block from the apartment when his phone rang with the paper’s number on it.
“Zurkov.”
“Hey, Nik, it’s Lyuba. I’ve got something for you.”
“Yeah?” he asked, weaving his way through the commuters walking to and from the metro station around him, his mind racing through possibilities. News of the trial? Some dirt on Lisko he hadn’t dug up? If Lyuba had found something he hadn’t, she was even better than he’d given her credit for.
“You know that woman on the stage at press conference? Turns out she’s Lisko’s wife.”
A wife. That was a recent development, and one the new CEO had kept private as he’d taken over the business. “Go on.”
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