by Bethany-Kris
“I need to know where she is. I need to be with her,” she added.
Roman weaved a hand through his hair, muttering, “You need to drop it, Masha, because it’s not going to happen. You’re not going to see Karine until I’ve decided it’s safe to do so.”
“Until you—”
“Yes, me,” he snapped back fast, tired of arguing with a woman who he owed nothing to. “I make the calls here.”
He wasn’t sure how certain he sounded because he hadn’t even been able to convince himself yet of it. How was he going to stay away from Karine?
Masha’s mouth parted in surprise, the facts of the matter finally beginning to sink in for her. Several times, she made attempts to say something, but she couldn’t form whatever words she wanted.
Roman lost his patience.
Fast.
“Excuse me,” he said, moving to step past her in the entry. “I need to speak to my father. You can just ... chill.”
“You’re going to pay for this.”
She hurled the words at him when he walked past. It made Roman stop in his tracks and turn to her again.
“What did you just fucking say to me?”
He’d given Masha chance after chance to back off—to recognize that yes, she was given more freedom in her place, but her place was a privilege here—but it seemed like she was only growing more bold with time.
“You will. You’ll pay for doing this. For keeping us apart.” Masha trembled as she spoke. He could see it wasn’t an easy feat for her to take a stand like she was, but he was losing all sympathy considering the circumstances.
Many, she didn’t even know.
“And you’ll be kicked out on your ass if you want to keep walking this fucking line with me,” he snarled at her, adding darkly, “I can make you disappear if I want to. Don’t forget it.”
Just to be clear.
Because apparently, it had to be.
Masha blinked in shock. What did she expect? He’d tried to be friendly with her. He didn’t want to handle her the way she had been treated by the Yazovs.
She had nothing more to say to that. He had put her firmly back in her place. For now, it was good enough.
Roman strode beyond the entry, deeper into the house with a nagging feeling that he would have to do something about Masha soon. Before she became a real problem for him.
He just didn’t know what.
*
He wasn’t expecting his mother to be in his father’s office with Demyan.
Two bulls led him inside, and shut the door behind them. Demyan and Claire were sat across from each other at the big oak desk. Each had a glass of vodka on ice in their hands.
They turned to look at their son. While Claire was in the room, Demyan paid her the respect of not filling it with cigar smoke. It was the only time Roman remembered his father not smoking in the space. It didn’t stop the smell from lingering on the walls, though.
“Roman!” Claire jumped off her chair and came over to give him a hug. He let her engulf him in an embrace that felt like home. For a moment, anyway. “We were so worried. Why would you do that—we didn’t know where you were, or what you were doing, why?”
She stroked her hands over his face affectionately, tucking the longer strands of his dark hair behind his ears. It reminded him that he needed a damn haircut because his distractions lately had caused him to put it aside. Roman pulled away from her, still fuming from his latest interaction with Masha and not wanting to show it to his ma.
She didn’t deserve that.
It wasn’t on her.
“I’m fine,” he assured. “Everything’s fine.”
“Where is she? Where’s Karine?” Claire asked, looking over his shoulder in the hopes that she’d somehow missed Karine behind him.
Fuck.
Maybe he should have explained before just showing up on them. It might have made this easier, but honestly, he doubted it.
“She’s not here, Ma. You had to have known I wouldn’t bring her back here. It’s not safe.”
Claire stepped away, her knowing gaze looking him up and down before finally asking, “So, where is she? Where did you take her?”
“Somewhere she can be safe, and can get the help she needs,” he replied.
When Roman met his father’s eyes he was unsure of his reaction. Demyan seemed calm. He always seemed fucking calm—that was the damn problem. He wasn’t able to gauge shit from Demyan when he needed to the most.
Why couldn’t he be like that, too?
“Getting help where? What are you talking about?”
His mother’s cluelessness about the overall situation pleased Roman. It meant his father hadn’t given anything away regarding Karine’s new location. The less people who knew, the better.
Loose lips sank ships.
Every fucking time.
Even if it was his ma.
Demyan was the only person who had some idea—a few details because Roman couldn’t make it all work on his own—but not the full picture.
“Claire, sit down, let him explain. He’s not going to give you any information he doesn’t want to share. Clearly, he’s gone to great lengths to keep a lot of it hidden from the world. For good reason, I promise.”
Demyan’s voice was firm, and while Claire was usually the one who had the upper hand in their relationship, his father also worshipped the ground his wife walked on. However, it only took a tone of voice for his father’s position in the bratva—in their family—to be clear. While they were in his office, his mother would listen to his command.
So, she took her chair again—while still throwing darts at Roman with her eyes, and saying nothing all the same.
“She is in a place where she can get real help with her treatment. More help than Michelle could offer at the lodge by herself. But she’s also safe where she is, and that’s what she needed more than anything else right now.”
Claire shook her head like she didn’t understand, but she didn’t ask any questions. That would be a defiance of her husband’s orders, though he could see how his mother struggled to keep her emotions and questions under control.
Demyan cleared his throat, and nodded when Claire glanced his way. She seemed to take that as permission to ask those questions her son had seen in her eyes.
“So this place where you took her, she went in willingly? She knows it’s a place where she’ll get help—where she’s safe?”
Roman shoved his fisted hands into the pockets of his pants. He wasn’t sure how to even begin to answer that question. “Karine is not always in a position to make her own decisions. I’m sure we can agree on that.”
His mother didn’t like that.
At all.
“What does that mean?”
“Ma—”
“You didn’t answer what I asked. You talked around it. Are you telling me—or not—that she didn’t want to go in there?” Claire demanded, her gaze fiery.
Roman looked his mother’s way knowing his frustration with everyone and everything was undoubtedly written all over his face. He couldn’t be bothered to hide it anymore. Karine as a topic of conversation with his parents was last on his list at the moment. More important shit waited at the top.
What were they going to do about Dima and Leonid? What about the fact that Roman was almost killed by one of the bastards?
Karine was fine.
Or rather ... safe.
It was time to handle business.
“No, I wouldn’t say she was particularly excited about it, but it had to be done,” Roman settled on saying to his mother. “She couldn’t stay at the lodge anymore—hell, look how close Dima came up on me. She couldn’t live here. Where else was she supposed to go? Where was I supposed to take her?”
“Well—”
“I am the only one who is fucking responsible for her. I made a choice, that’s all. I know where she is, I know she’s okay ... and I know they can’t get her there if they don’t know she’s there
in the first place. That’s all that matters to me.”
He wouldn’t admit his feelings for Karine. Not openly to his parents—except he didn’t really have to anymore. They knew what this meant.
Claire’s nostrils flared, a sure sign of her disapproval. She didn’t have an answer to his question, though.
He had thought about his actions long and hard already—agonized over his final choice in the short days and hours leading up to her admittance to the Twin Rivers facility in Vegas. If there was any other option for Karine, he would have taken it.
This was it.
At least she was safe.
Roman had to keep telling himself that.
“I hope you’ve explained it to her, and that she understands your point of view here because ... Roman, she was making such good progress. She trusted you.”
His nerves were already pulled taut.
Ready to snap.
Roman just needed a reason.
“I don’t need to fucking listen to this,” he barked at his mother. “I can’t do everything right—I can only get it done, Ma.”
“Don’t you push it,” Demyan growled from behind his desk, a single finger pointed like a gun at his son.
It was a warning Roman knew he couldn’t take lightly. Rubbing his temples with his fingers, he tried to soothe the throbbing ache at the back of his skull.
No such luck.
“What happened to your hand?”
His mother’s horrified question had Roman rolling his eyes and waving the concern off when he replied, “My hand is fine. Or it will be. I’m not sure about the rest of me.”
The silence in the room echoed. Maybe they didn’t know what to say, but he wished somebody would figure it out. He was fucked. In every way possible.
“I married her,” he said.
He had to tell them; planned to, actually. He didn’t mean for the words to just slip out like they did, though.
“You ...” Claire started to say, trailing off as her gaze darted from him, and then back over her shoulder to her husband.
Roman filled in the blanks for her, saying, “We got married six days ago. Now she’s officially mine. Dima can’t claim any right over a married woman.”
Claire covered her mouth with both hands, her gaze widening. He couldn’t tell if she was still horrified, or overjoyed.
“But he can kill her for it,” Demyan murmured, drawing his son’s gaze to his.
Roman didn’t reply.
“Well, son, I suppose now you need to do whatever you have to do to keep your woman safe,” his father advised.
He was trying.
Wasn’t he?
*
Roman called Twin Rivers—again—as he took the stairs down to the entry of his parents’ home. The woman who answered the call said she would try and get a hold of Sylvia, who was Karine’s primary counsellor, and there he stood on the stairs, waiting like an idiot on hold with no promise of anything.
He’d been calling the facility almost hourly. They knew him well by now, expecting his calls to the point where a couple ladies actually greeted him by his first name, and they probably also knew he wouldn’t give up until he’d spoken to his wife.
His meeting with his parents hadn’t gone according to plan, either. There was no chance to discuss anything work-related with his father while his mother remained in the room. They hadn’t made any plans.
The only thing on everyone’s mind seemed to be Karine, and the decision Roman had taken on her behalf. Like it wasn’t already done—it was.
It was clear he wasn’t the only one putting the weight of blame on his shoulders.
Marky was the only one who didn’t want to burn him at the stake for the choice, apparently.
“Hello, Mr. Avdonin,” a familiar voice said through the phone. “Sylvia here. I just went in to check on your wife, and she doesn’t want to talk.”
Right.
The same answer he’d been getting.
“To me, you mean?” he growled into the phone.
“To anyone. She’s been quite hostile towards us pretty much since you left the facility.”
“So, she’s refusing treatment?”
“We haven’t even broached that subject yet, Mr. Avdonin,” Sylvia replied with a sigh.
Roman flattened a palm to his face, seeing white dots floating in front of his eyes as the anger bubbled beneath his surface.
Maybe this was how Karine felt, too. Like she wasn’t in control of anything. If she wanted to give him a taste of what she experienced on a daily basis, then she had succeeded.
“I just want to speak to my wife, okay? Can you get her to do that? Fuck the treatment. Fuck the program. I just need to hear her voice.”
It took the woman on the other end of the call a minute to respond, and when she did, it wasn’t at all what Roman wanted to hear. “I can’t make any promises. This entire thing has been traumatic for her in a way I’m not sure you’ve truly realized ... It’s on her, now. Some people need a lot of time, and let’s hope she is just one of them. Hopefully, she’ll come around.”
He also heard what she didn’t say.
Or didn’t want to say, rather.
You made your bed—lie in it.
Roman ended the call.
He didn’t want to listen to any more.
As he headed out of his parents’ house, he texted Marky to meet him at Poe’s.
It was code that Marky would recognize.
Everything was just too much, and Roman swore he was starting to fall apart at the seams. There was only one thing he could do to get himself under some semblance of control, even if it would leave him numb.
He just needed to feel alive.
If only for a second.
Even though he was the one who’d admitted Karine into a facility, it was as though she had been the one who left him for dead. He didn’t even think she knew it.
How could she?
EIGHT
Marky was late, and by the time he got to Poe’s—well, the deed was done. Roman was already sniffing hard, and rubbing his nose with the back of his hand.
“What the fuck did you do, man?” Marky asked, rushing to where Roman stood at the mouth of the alley beside the dive bar known only as Poe’s to the men who liked to frequent the place.
His friend didn’t bother to lean against the wall like he was. With a cigarette burning to dust between his fingers, he couldn’t actually remember whether or not he’d taken a drag off it before it was practically gone.
“Nothing. I didn’t do anything to help her,” Roman replied.
That wasn’t what Marky asked, but it was the only thing on Roman’s mind. The entire reason why he was standing there sniffing what coke remained in his nose straight up to his fucking brain. Too bad he’d never been able to take enough to end it all.
Somehow, he’d never found a threshold.
“Fuck that. And I want to know what you’re doing here, Roman. This is the last place in the city you should be—what are you doing?”
Roman threw the spent cigarette butt to the ground, and grabbed his friend by the shoulders. “That’s what everyone seems to think. Including my parents. They think I abandoned her. I married her, for fuck’s sake.”
“Roman, look at me,” Marky snapped, shoving out of his friend’s hold.
“I am looking at you, man. I’m telling you exactly what’s going on. I married a girl, and then abandoned her. I should be shot in the fucking face.”
At that point, despite the somber tone of his voice, Roman broke into a loud cackling laugh when he made a gun with his fingers, pointed it at his head, and pretended to pull the trigger.
Unsurprisingly, Marky didn’t find it funny. His suspicious gaze swept the street to see if anyone was watching them. No one was.
Roman pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket and lit another smoke. The ache in his chest said he didn’t need another one, but fuck it.
He was already dead.
“Yeah, yeah, okay, I heard you,” Marky said, shaking his head. “I’m not going to stand here and give you a fucking speech right now, but you don’t need me to, either. You know what you’re here for, and I can see it all over your face. Your eyes get black like coal when you’re high on coke, Rome, do you even realize that?”
Roman blinked, licking his lips and smirking a bit. “Do they?”
The coke made his mirth insatiable. Things that weren’t at all funny became one long joke to him. He couldn’t stop the urge to see everything as good. Because it was better when he was like this.
Even if nothing was good at all.
His relationship with Karine, his life, all of it was falling apart and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Marky groaned as he put his back to the wall, standing beside Roman. “You’ve been clean for months, man. You were so fucking close.”
The sky was the brightest of blues.
“It doesn’t even matter,” Roman said quietly.
“Nah, it does. You know it does.”
“Yeah, well—”
“And you’re a married man, now. You have a chick who cares about you. What are you doing getting fucked up, huh? How’s that gonna look?”
“She won’t even talk to me on the phone. She fucking hates me.” Roman pushed away from Marky and the wall, throwing that cigarette to the ground, too. He really didn’t need it, and he’d lost the urge for nicotine, really.
His friend took small steps, keeping his distance but still following behind. Marky knew better than to think he could get Roman to actually do what he wanted.
That’s not how any of this worked.
“Where are you going?” Marky asked
Roman shrugged, throwing his hands wide. “It’s over. It’s fucking over, man. I thought I could save her, but I can’t.”
Or was he talking about himself?
Hell.
Even he didn’t know.
*
It felt like an entire day had passed when Roman woke up next. He couldn’t remember anything from the previous night, but he woke up in the same jeans and button-down shirt that he’d been wearing the night before.
Alone.