The Professional

by Kresley Cole

  I dashed tears away with the back of my hand. "What kind of future do you think I want?"

  "A life with a good man."

  I couldn't argue with that.

  "But a man is defined by his past," he said. "Which means I'm a killer. I always will be. There's nothing I can do to erase that for you. No matter how hard I work or how much I sacrifice, it follows me and always will. How do I keep it from tainting you?"

  "I already know about your occupation. I accepted it. I've seen you kill twice. Is there more?"

  He shot to his feet, pacing again. Why would he answer that? If he equated his revelations with the end of our relationship, he wouldn't. Not unless he accepted that it would end if he didn't tell me.

  "You don't know what you're asking of me! I never told Paxan these things, and he came to trust me. To love me. Why can it not be the same with you?" Sevastyan was angling for his own self-preservation. "Why can't you just pretend my past is a blank void?" Under his breath, he said bitterly, "That's what I do."

  "I can't pretend. I have to know."

  He stabbed his fingers through his hair, yanking at the ends. "Natalie, I need you . . . I need you not to know me. And still stay."

  "I swear to you that will not happen."

  He dropped his hands. "Goddamn it, it must!"

  I shook my head, my tears drying. "Sevastyan . . ."

  He faced me and stood motionless, as if awaiting a gallows drop.

  ". . . I'm already gone." I rose to dress.

  He clutched at his throat as if starving for air. "Don't speak like that!" He lunged forward to clutch my shoulders. "Look at me. Look at me!"

  His eyes appeared full black. "I will tell you that I've killed many sons, many fathers. I started at the age of twelve."

  I held my breath.

  "The first father I killed was my own."

  CHAPTER 44

  Sevastyan's admission rocked me. Not only because of what he'd said, but because of the shame emanating from him.

  He released his grip on my shoulders. "Say something, Natalie." He was waiting for my disgust--and he had zero doubt he would receive it.

  Little as I knew about Sevastyan, at least one trait had been made clear: his unwavering loyalty toward those he loved. Considering that he'd been only twelve when this had happened, and he'd hinted that things had been bad with his alcoholic father, I had to believe he'd been defending himself. "Your father must've left you no choice."

  Sevastyan did a double take, seeming shocked that I hadn't run from the room. "How can you say that? Did you not hear me? I've just confessed to . . . patricide."

  "I saw how you were with Paxan. You would've been devoted to any father who was worthy of it."

  Sevastyan sat at the foot of the bed, then stood abruptly, only to sit once more. The pain inside this man! Some mechanism deep within is broken.

  "Tell me the circumstances."

  Narrowing his gaze, he bit out, "I got my father to the top of the stairs in our home, looked him in the eye, and pushed him, knowing he would likely die."

  "What happened before this?"

  "Are the facts not damning enough? As a boy, I made a decision to kill. And I've been doing it ever since."

  I pressed on. "What happened before your father died?"

  Sevastyan's brows drew tight, as if I'd just confounded him. "I . . . I never got this far when I imagined telling you. I always expected you to back away, fear in your eyes."

  Instead, I took a seat on the bed, settling in with my back against the headboard. "Tell me now."

  Looking anywhere but at me, he began, "My father was violent when he drank. My earliest memories are of blocking blows. He was a massive man, with these fists . . . they were unyielding. They were weapons."

  His earliest memories? The idea of Sevastyan as a little boy, abused by the man who should've been protecting him from harm, burned inside my brain.

  I remembered his words: I am singularly suited to fighting, always have been. Paxan had witnessed him taking a beating and had puzzled how someone so young could continue to rise.

  Sevastyan had been able to take blow after blow--because he'd been so used to them.

  Oh, God. Trying for a steady tone, I said, "Please go on."

  "He considered himself a disciplined man, bragging to others that he only drank when it was dark out. Which meant he never stopped during the Siberian winters. Even now, I hate winter. Autumn just as much."

  "Why?"

  "It will always be a time of tension for me, a season to anticipate pain. Each day the sun sets sooner. Anticipation can be as hard as enduring."

  All of this had been going on during these fall weeks that I'd shared with him? And I'd never known what deep-seated pain he'd been battling. "Was your mother with you?"

  "For a time, but she couldn't protect us from him. She died two winters before he did. Supposedly she fell down those same stairs. A tragic accident, they said. Yet I have no doubt he pushed her. He just left her body there, mottled with bruises, cast away like garbage. Dmitri found her the next morning. He was too young to handle that sight, was inconsolable."

  Who could handle seeing something like that at any age?

  "Though I loved my mother dearly, I remember being angrier about my brother's suffering than I was sad over her passing."

  "I'm so sorry." Sevastyan had lost his mother at ten. How much of her abuse had he and his brothers witnessed before then? "Please tell me about the night your father died."

  I saw the exact moment Sevastyan decided to step off the trestle; he swallowed thickly. "My father knew all of his sons' hiding places inside the manor. No matter how quiet we were, he would find us, seeming to delight in our fear. So my brothers and I often hid outside when he was drunk."

  Now I knew why Sevastyan hated surprises. Now I understood why he'd nearly gone ballistic when Maksim revealed that "quiet was rewarded."

  "The last night I saw my brothers as boys, I was scarcely twelve. Maksim was eleven and Dmitri seven. Over the years, we'd all suffered concussions, broken limbs and ribs."

  How casually Sevastyan related that--life-threatening abuse reduced to background information.

  "Yet on this night, my father's rage seemed even sharper than usual. Though it was the dead of a Siberian winter, we had no choice but to flee outside." Sevastyan's eyes went vacant, as if he was reliving it. "I dressed Dmitri as warmly and as quickly as I could, then we waded through snow to reach the closest outbuilding, a drafty toolshed. We waited there, freezing for hours, staring at the shelter of our home. The manor was aglow with light, the windows fogging from the warmth inside. Our family had such wealth, but we were about to die of exposure."

  I could imagine the scene so clearly: three traumatized boys yearning for that brightly lit manor, while fearing the monster within it.

  "When Dmitri's lips started turning blue, I knew I had to go inside, to see if the old bastard had passed out. . . ." Sevastyan's eyes flashed toward me. "I don't want to remember any of this. I never did! I've never told another about this night."

  "Please, trust me with this."

  Seeming to steel himself, he began again, confronting this agony for me. "I hadn't gotten past the kitchen before he spotted me. I ran, but my legs were so stiff from cold it was like my feet were trapped in quicksand. He caught me, repeatedly bludgeoning my face. One of my eyes swelled shut, and I could barely see from the other."

  Sevastyan had started sweating, his chest sheening with it. Was he aware that his own fists were clenched till his knuckles were white? I wanted to touch him, soothe him, but feared he'd go silent.

  "He demanded to know where his other sons were, vowed he'd beat me to death if I didn't tell him. Somehow I managed to get loose, fought my way up the stairs. On the landing, he caught me again."

  Eyes watering, I whispered, "Go on."

  "For the first time in my life, I did more than brace for a blow. I . . . I hit back." Even after all these years, Sevastyan's tone w
as filled with astonishment. "He was stunned, but hurt too. I was big for my age--and all of the sudden my fists felt unyielding. I'd never struck another, not even Maksim in play. When my father recovered from his shock, his gaze turned lethal. I knew he was about to kill me."

  "What happened then?" My heart was in my throat.

  "Years' worth of rage welled up inside me, and I . . . beat him. Over and over. He'd backed to the edge of the stairway, swaying there unsteadily. Our eyes met. I'll never forget the uncanny feeling I had at that moment--I knew this was exactly what had happened to my mother. He'd beaten her, driving her to the brink. Stranger still, he . . . he registered my comprehension. And he had this bloody smirk as he said, 'You'll grow up to be just like me. Whenever you look in the mirror, you'll see my face.' The idea was so horrific--I launched my fist, knowing he would fall, hoping he would die. He snapped his neck against the first-floor wall." Sevastyan slid another glance at me.

  "I'm here. What did you do after?"

  "I knew I'd be sent to prison for murder. So I covered his body and retrieved my brothers. Afterward, I gathered what cash I could find and ran into the night. I had enough to reach St. Petersburg, to get lost among the other children there."

  "How long was it before Paxan found you?"

  "A year and a half. Long enough for me to suspect Paxan was some sort of deviant when he offered to take me in. Long enough to be mystified when I recognized he was a good man."

  "How had you survived before then?"

  Sevastyan rubbed a tattoo on his finger. I remembered that one signified thievery. "I stole. But as I got older, it became more difficult--I was getting taller and couldn't slip away in a crowd as easily. There were times I was caught." His voice broke lower. "If you crossed the wrong protection gangs and couldn't fight your way free, things were . . . done."

  He'd been attacked by street thugs?

  "Your father told you about how he first found me. But what I never confessed to him was that I didn't always win on those streets. And when I didn't"--he stared down at his fists--"I lost . . . much."

  Oh, God, no, no, no. I'd read about preyed-upon runaways in the States, read things that made my skin crawl; what had those men done to Sevastyan as a boy?

  He glanced up. "Do you understand what I'm saying to you?" Shame is more painful . . . ?

  But he had nothing to be ashamed of ! Did he not understand that? Tonight, I might not be able to overturn twenty years of thinking, but so help me, ultimately I'd convince him.

  His eyes went hazy once more. Was he reliving those agonies as well? I didn't want him to, only wanted to comfort him.

  In a hollow tone, he repeated, "I lost much."

  "Will you tell me?"

  He closed his eyes. "I will. Just not today. Don't ask that of me today." His eyes shot open. "But you don't leave."

  My heart was shattering, shards all around me. "I won't," I assured him. How easy it'd been for me to demand equal disclosure about our pasts when I had nothing shocking--or even noteworthy--to disclose. I'd wanted us to be equal, yet I hadn't realized that our histories weren't. "Why don't you tell me what happened to your brothers?"

  Clearly relieved to move past that topic, Sevastyan said, "We had no relatives, so they remained at the manor, with conservators brought in to arrange for their upbringing. I stayed away, fearing prosecution, but also because I look so much like my father, more with every year. I wanted to spare them the sight of me. I didn't know until years later that Maksim had convinced the authorities that he and Dmitri had witnessed our drunken father's fall, and that their older brother was missing because I'd become crazed with grief. Even then, Maksim could spin a tale like no other."

  Fondness for his brother had crept into Sevastyan's tone, at odds with the chilliness between them earlier.

  "I thought I had saved my brothers from an abusive tyrant, that they'd be free. At least I could wear that badge." He clasped his forehead. "Yet just this week, Maksim admitted to me that the caretakers who came in to raise him and Dmitri were . . . worse than our father."

  "How?" I asked, but I could guess. His brothers had been abused, just as Sevastyan had--as if that was always going to be their fate, no matter what they did or how much they fought it.

  "I won't speak more about it, because that's not my secret to tell."

  I recalled that day of the museum when he'd returned to the town house. He'd said nothing to me, just wrapped his arms around me as if I were the only thing keeping him afloat. Had he just learned of this from Maksim?

  "I understand, Sevastyan. But you can't take the blame for that. You were just twelve--you couldn't have known."

  "I abandoned them. That's how they see it, and they hate me for it. Maksim less than Dmitri, because he remembers me more. But deep down, they both want me to suffer for their fates. Why would I ever want to reveal my family to you, when I know they despise me?"

  "I don't care how anyone else feels about you."

  "Would you not? I didn't want anything to affect your opinion of me. Sometimes you look at me as if I'm some sort of hero. I can't explain . . . there's no explaining what that feels like to me." The look of longing on his face gave me an idea. "What would happen if you found out that most of my life has been everything unheroic? What if you discovered that I'm hated--and that I hate myself for every time I lost?"

  He moved closer to me, shaving off the distance, and I wanted him to.

  "Then, after finally managing to win--in work, in life--I was losing you."

  Not trusting myself to speak, I offered him my hand.

  He stared at it in disbelief, then all but lunged for it. He absently took my other hand and began warming them between his own. Because they were cold.

  At length, I said, "Thank you for trusting me with this."

  "You aren't disgusted with me?"

  "Of course not." I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but I thought this moment was too tenuous. "With your father, you acted in self-defense. I think things got mixed up for you because you were so young." Over time, his mind must have confused his memories, guilt overwhelming the reality of that night: if he hadn't protected himself, he would have died. "You didn't have a choice."

  "Every day, I look in the mirror--and my father stares back."

  "You're nothing like him," I said vehemently.

  He scowled at me. "How can you say that when you tell me you don't know me?"

  "Would your father have harbored this guilt for nearly two decades? Would he hate himself for things he had absolutely no control over?"

  Sevastyan swallowed. "And what about the other . . . ?"

  "I'm just grateful you survived. I'm grateful you told me."

  He looked like he seethed with emotion. "You can't expect me to believe that you're willingly here with me after I confessed what I did--and what was done to me. Much less because I confessed it!"

  "You have to believe it, because it's true. What I know of you only binds me to you more."

  He fell silent for what seemed like an eternity.

  "Tell me what you're thinking, Sevastyan. What you're feeling."

  "Feeling?" He made a caustic sound. "You've just felled me. No, you've slain me. I'll never want another, yet you were ready to give up on me." He dropped my hands, his ire mounting. "You can't think that all this is random! Paxan found me all those years ago. Across the world, you somehow found him, and then he sent me to you. At any point, you could have been lost to me."

  Sevastyan had told me in the banya that we were inevitable. Now I realized why he believed that.

  Now I did too.

  He reached out to grip my upper arms. "I went through my entire life, never knowing that I was starving for this beautiful, brilliant redhead. Then I saw her. I watched her. All the while, she had no idea that she went about her days and tormented me every one of them."

  I gasped. "Sevastyan . . ."

  "The first time I saw you, you nearly put me to my knees. I wanted to invade your thou
ghts as totally as you had mine. When I did manage to sleep, I'd dream of you and wake up fucking the sheets." His grip grew harsher, as if someone were trying to take me away from him. "I'd will you to look at me. And then, in that bar, you did. You showed interest in me, and amazingly Paxan approved the match. All he asked was that I give you time." He released my shoulders to pace. "Time--while goddamned Filip moved in on my woman!"

  "I didn't choose Filip."

  "You didn't choose me either! Not until you were alone and confused, reeling from Paxan's death. I took advantage of you that night, and every night after."

  "No," I said firmly, "I wanted you."

  "Because you didn't know the real me. Can you understand now why I didn't want to give in to my perversions with you, to give you pain? I feared becoming like my father. I fought so hard, but the thought of you going to another . . . it sent me over the edge."

  Was I hurting him by putting on pressure? To engage in sex he wasn't comfortable with? Considering all the abuse I knew about--and the abuse I could only imagine--I had to wonder.

  He might enjoy what we did together, then be appalled at himself.

  He was talking to me now; I needed to dig deeper with him. "Will you tell me when you first realized your particular interests?"

  His voice was so grave when he asked, "I'm to reveal even more?"

  "Yes, Sevastyan," I answered. "There's no word limit here."

  His brows drew together. "It didn't start out as a sexual thing."

  "I don't understand."

  He exhaled. "I'd always had my brothers in my life, but in St. Petersburg, I suddenly had no one. Though there were other children, I couldn't connect with them. Not with my background. Yet I hated being alone. Even at that age, I decided that I needed a wife--who would belong to me."

  I tried to picture Sevastyan as a boy, mulling marriage of all things. Yet decades later, he'd never wed. He wants to marry you, Nat. . . .

  "I was young enough to make ridiculous plans, but old enough to realize I was homeless and penniless. I knew I had nothing to offer anyone. Until a year later . . ." He trailed off.

  "Tell me."

  With reluctance, he said, "There was a back-alley prostitute that all the boys used to watch. I could tell she was feigning passion with her clients, faking screams--desperate just to be done for the night."