Only Lexi could sound so close to tears, so completely compassionate, without upsetting her more. Blythe took the glass of water Judith handed to her, drank most of it and forced a smile at her youngest sister.
"Viktor and I spent several weeks together. That was when he insisted we get married in his church. It was in the dead of night and felt very runaway and exciting. Right after that, though, he began to get quieter and edgy. Not with me--he was always sweet--but he stopped talking so much to me. Mom and Ray decided to come for a visit. I didn't know, but later, Mom told me that Viktor extended an olive branch to them. They needed a loan, and he'd agreed to give them money."
Bile rose and she pressed her hand over her stomach again. She felt empty and lost, very alone right in the midst of the women she loved enough to call sisters. "We were at dinner, and of course they were drinking. Ray was obnoxious, and Mom ended up throwing a plate at me because I told him I didn't want him talking the way he was about my mother at the table. He was disgusting and she just let him carry on. I knew he was doing it on purpose.
"Viktor suddenly stood up and said he'd had enough. He looked straight at Ray, but he was talking to Mom and me. He told us Ray was a notorious pedophile and justice had caught up with him. Very, very calmly, he pulled out a gun--one I didn't even know he owned--and he shot Ray four times. Both eyes, the middle of his forehead and his throat. He threw pictures on the table and then grabbed my hair, pulled my head back and kissed me. Kissed me with my stepfather's blood all over the walls and my mother screaming. Then he was just . . . gone. He was gone."
The burn of tears was back. It was so difficult to keep from feeling that shock and horror all over again. "I picked up the pictures, and they made me vomit. Not the blood. Not the death. The pictures of Ray with little boys. I knew instantly why he kept Mom drinking. He didn't have to touch her. Mom went crazy, trying to rip the photographs from me, hitting, kicking and throwing things at me. Viktor had already called the police, and when they got there, they had to restrain her. They called medics, who gave her a sedative, and then they took her up to our bedroom, leaving me to deal with the questions."
She looked around her a little helplessly. "I didn't have any answers. I kept expecting him to come back, to say it was all a mistake. Something. Anything."
"Oh, Blythe," Airiana whispered.
Blythe took a deep breath. She wished the story ended there, but it didn't. "It came out that Ray was this horrific pedophile wanted by Interpol in just about every country in the world. He had set up a huge site on the Internet where children were bought and sold. He was the lowest of the low and my mother had married him. She was humiliated, and somehow I got blamed. If I hadn't brought Viktor into their lives, Ray would have turned over a new leaf with her."
"What?" Rikki was horrified. "Blythe, you know he wouldn't have. Even if he could have, what about all those children he hurt during his lifetime? You know it was a good thing he was gone."
She forced herself to nod. "Mom shut herself in the house and I was once again taking care of her. A couple of weeks later it was very apparent I was pregnant." Just saying it hurt. It hurt so much she could barely breathe and she had to stop to force air through her lungs.
There was a collective gasp all around, and Airiana covered the small baby mound with both hands protectively. "Blythe." Just her name. The anguish was for both of them.
Blythe stood up and beckoned to the others to follow her. She'd kept this room sacred. No one had ever been in it. At first they'd asked her why she locked it, but when she wouldn't answer, they dropped it out of respect. She unlocked the room, grateful she didn't have to hide it anymore. Still, the agony burned through her until she could barely breathe.
"I was just over six months along when Mom went crazy again. She'd been drinking all day when I came home from work. I went upstairs to change and she followed me up, screaming at me how I'd ruined her life. How I was so smug, but no man wanted me and no man would ever stay with me. I ignored her. I shouldn't have done that. I knew better. It only made her angrier if I didn't answer, but I was so tired and I just couldn't deal with her."
They followed her into the room--her shrine to her child. To Viktor. She'd mourned them both. The room was the smallest in the house, and she'd covered the walls with beautiful paintings of mothers and infants. There was a picture on canvas of Blythe lying on a bed with a tiny infant on her chest. The baby's head was turned to one side and her eyes were closed. She had dark hair, quite a lot of it.
Blythe had to steel herself to tell them the rest. "Mom's voice kept swinging out of control and she said the most vicious things. She hated me, she always had. She never wanted me. No one did. That sort of thing. Her voice was slurred, and I turned to leave the room. She must have picked up a baseball bat because she swung it at me. Hard. The first hit knocked me down. Then she kept hitting me." Bile rose. She pressed her hand to her stomach as if she could protect her unborn child. "She hit me several times right in the stomach. She kept kicking me and hitting me and I passed out."
Her voice broke on a sob and she pressed trembling fingertips to her mouth. She closed her eyes. "I think the neighbors called the cops, or maybe she did when she saw what she'd done. They took me to the hospital but it was too late."
She touched the canvas with gentle fingers. "She lived two days and they let me hold her like this. There wasn't any way to save her. Then she was dead. His daughter. All I had left of him. Of our dream. My dream. All I had left, period." She lifted her gaze to her sisters. "I wanted her so much."
There was silence with the exception of Airiana's soft weeping. Lexi had tears running down her face, but she was silent. She'd learned to stay silent no matter what and, although she was free of her past now, those hard lessons she'd learned as a child stuck with her.
Blythe sighed. "I may as well tell you the rest of it. It's ugly, but anything to do with my mother is ugly. She claimed in court she'd blacked out and didn't know what she was doing. Her sisters hired the best defense attorney and pleaded with the court to give her rehab. I honestly don't know whether it was the letters, or if they used their gifts to persuade him. I was so numb I couldn't have felt anyone's energy."
"They wouldn't," Judith said, gasping. "That would be so wrong."
"The judge gave her five years because, after all, the baby hadn't been born yet, and I didn't have any real permanent damage. She was remorseful, and if she agreed to go to rehab that time would count toward her sentence. If she did good there, they would put her on probation. Of course she tearfully took the rehab, begging my forgiveness in front of the entire court very dramatically. I got up and walked out. I couldn't forgive her or my aunts. I just couldn't. I still can't. She committed suicide three years ago, but you all know that. Now you know why I didn't cry when I heard and I refused to go to her funeral."
There was more silence. Blythe couldn't look at any of them. She didn't want Airiana and Judith to think she was upset that they were expecting--and both were. Neither was very far along, but enough to show. With the new baby, Airiana would have five children. Judith still had fears about having a child, but she was excited, and Blythe knew she'd make a wonderful mother.
She waved them back out of the room. At the last moment she reached out and caught up a photograph she kept on the end table beside her reading chair. Now that her sisters knew the truth, she was putting it in her great room with her other family photos, the ones of her sisters--the people she loved.
"I'm making more tea," Judith said, all but running out of the room.
Blythe waited until everyone had found a seat again. "I know that your husbands will want to see their brother. I don't know if he's still on an assignment or not," she continued doggedly. She was going to get this out in the open. "I wish him well. I want him to succeed at whatever he's doing, and I don't want any harm to come to him. Ray Langton was a pedophile. He was everything and more than Viktor said that night. I'm not sorry he's dead. I never felt guilt o
ver Ray. I know everyone assumed that, and I let you."
"It's the baby," Airiana said softly. "You aren't in any way responsible, but you look back and there's so many things you tell yourself you could have done differently."
Blythe nodded. "Intellectually I know it wasn't my fault, but night and day, it haunts me. If only I'd given Mom the attention she craved. Let her think her berating me was tearing me down like she needed it to do. Instead, I just stayed silent, knowing that made her crazier. Wanting to make her crazy. It was my petty revenge."
She choked back the sob welling up in her throat. She'd already cried a million tears for her lost daughter. The baby hadn't been real to the judge, but she was alive and real to Blythe.
"His coming back has brought all this back up again," Lissa said.
Blythe shook her head. "I wish I could say that, but it's never gone away. I think of her every day. I miss her every day. I want her back. I wanted to see her born." She looked straight at Lissa, still hurting from her withholding the news of Viktor. "He just makes me feel the way my mother did--like I'm worthless and nothing at all. He didn't even bother to call me or let me know he was alive and well. I can't afford to feel that way. I have a difficult time some days finding a reason to get up and keep going."
Lexi gasped. "Blythe. No."
"I wouldn't." At least she told herself she would never get that depressed. She fought it often, and running was her way to lose herself. When she ran, she didn't think about the past. She didn't think about her daughter or Viktor or how she never forgave her mother and her mother died alone. She should care, but she didn't. She couldn't. And she did feel guilty about that too. She just wasn't going to tell anyone.
"You have us," Rikki said fiercely. "You saved us. All of us. Without you, I have no idea where I'd be. Lev will want to see his brother, but he doesn't have to do it here, on the farm. He can find somewhere else."
"This is Lev's home," Blythe reminded gently. "He should be able to see his brother anytime he wants and to invite him home. I just would appreciate a heads-up from all of you so I don't run into him. I'll either leave the farm until you text me the okay, or I'll lock up my house and stay inside. I think that's being fair. Tomorrow I'm calling an attorney to start divorce proceedings. Please, please talk to your men and make them understand."
The women nodded.
"He saw me on the street on his way into town, and he stopped. He was with a group of bikers. They weren't wearing colors, but they were definitely bikers. He had a woman on the back of his bike, and yet he was angry because I was talking to Derak Metzer. He told me we were married and demanded I go with him."
Judith came back, leaning one slim hip against the archway leading to the kitchen. "Blythe thinks he's a bigamist."
Lissa's breath hissed out, but when Blythe glanced at her, she just shook her head and looked down at her hands.
"Derak must have called 911. Jonas and Jackson showed up. Viktor told them I was his wife. He all but challenged them. I had to admit we were married or Viktor might have done something terrible, and his men had the better positions."
Blythe was certain both Jonas and Jackson would have been killed if there was a fight. Viktor might have been as well, but no way would the two lawmen have gotten away unscathed. Viktor's biker friends were menacing. There was no doubt in her mind they were armed.
"Does he know about the baby?" Judith asked.
Blythe shook her head. "By the time I was certain, he was gone and I had no idea where he went. He called himself Viktor Regent, not Prakenskii. I did check to see if the marriage was legal under Regent, and it wasn't. There was no such person. His identity, which had been all over the Internet, was gone. I didn't know the name Prakenskii then and everything was in Russian, including the priest when he talked to Viktor."
"Did you know when we went to that church to get married?" Judith asked.
"I suspected. My palm always itched and sometimes at night . . ." She trailed off, not wanting to think too much about those nights when her body ached and she had needed Viktor to put out the fire.
"The Prakenskii mark," Lissa said. "Casimir definitely put it on my palm."
Lexi held up her palm. "Gavriil. Right there."
Judith held up her left palm. "Stefan did the same."
"Maxim hit me with it," Airiana added.
Rikki nodded. "Lev totally got me." She rubbed her palm as if it was itching. "He's calling me now."
"That's no surprise, honey," Blythe said. "I'm shocked he's not sitting here with us. I wouldn't put it past him to get a wig and wear it in the hopes we wouldn't notice he's a guy instead of a girl."
Laughter erupted, sweeping some of the tension from the room. They needed that small reprieve. Lev had come to them first. Rikki had literally pulled him out of the sea, saving his life. He was over six feet with wide shoulders, a thick chest, all muscle and covered in scars. It would take a lot for him to pass himself off as a woman. Blythe had come to love him. He was protective over all the women, not just Rikki, but the sun rose and set with his wife. Blythe loved that for her. Rikki was odd, but she was a good person and a hard worker. Lev had succeeded in bringing her a little further out of her comfort zone and lately, little Lucia was helping him do just that.
Rikki got up and paced from one window to the other, looking out. "It would be just like him, and he'd better be home, behaving himself. We have the new puppy. We've decided he's going to be a sea dog. Black Russian Terriers like water, and they have life vests big enough for them. I don't want him at home alone. Gavriil told us they prefer the company of humans all the time."
"That's true," Blythe said, grateful the spotlight was off of her for a few minutes. She needed the reprieve. "But, honey, you do know he doesn't have to be with you every single minute. You need to let him know that it's all right if he's alone a little bit."
Rikki made a face and looked around the house. "Where's your puppy?"
Blythe opened her mouth and closed it. She was caught and there was no getting around it. "Lucia's watching her for me. I had things I had to do in town, and she's a little too young yet. She still needs another vaccination and it wasn't quite time yet."
The room erupted in another round of laughter, this time at her expense. She found she could actually smile and mean it. Her little puppy, Maya, was a small miracle to her, snuggling close and making her feel less lonely. She wasn't going to admit that to her laughing sisters. Unfortunately, she didn't think anything, not even a miracle, could take away the pain she felt right then after seeing Viktor.
Why couldn't she get over him? It was silly. She told herself he was a murderer, and yet she'd never really believed that. She told herself he abandoned her--which he had--but she had been certain it was her fault. He couldn't possibly love a woman like her. Her mother's words echoed through her mind, tearing at her self-esteem, and Viktor had just fed right into that. Today, seeing him with a beautiful woman on the back of his bike only cemented the belief that he had never really loved her, he'd just used her. That alone should make her stop daydreaming about him.
"Blythe." Lissa's voice had her coming out of her reverie to really look at her sister. "If you want Viktor gone from here, from Sea Haven, we'll make that happen."
"How?" Because seeing him tore her apart and made her back into that vulnerable child who had no self-esteem when she'd worked hard to be a woman of self-empowerment.
"Jackson and Jonas could ask him to move along," Judith suggested.
For a moment Blythe wanted to grab at that. They would do it too. They wouldn't like it if he hadn't actually done anything wrong and they wouldn't have cause, but for her family, they'd do it. She shook her head. The Viktor she knew, sweet and caring to her, was still a man who wouldn't be pushed around. If anything, he would become stubborn. The Viktor he was now, probably his true self, would take it as a challenge and he'd never leave.
"That won't work. I think it's best to just let him take care of whatever busine
ss he's looking to do here and avoid him as much as possible. If it looks as if he's going to be here awhile, I'll take a little vacation. I haven't gone off by myself in a long while." She hadn't needed to, but she couldn't afford seeing Viktor. Not again. And not with that woman. That had hit her hard. She barely slept now; how was she going to sleep with him in town?
Judith brought in tea, and Blythe gratefully accepted another cup. "You shouldn't have to be the one to leave."
"I don't mind, Judith," Blythe said quickly. She didn't want them all to protest or she'd start crying again. She supposed she was due. She hadn't cried since she'd buried her daughter. Now, it felt as if she couldn't stop.
"We mind," Lissa said, leaning forward. "We can have a meeting with the men here and tell them Viktor has to go."
"No. No, you can't do that. He's their brother. I wouldn't want them coming to me and saying one of you couldn't be on the property, let alone in the entire town of Sea Haven. He won't stay long. He's got an agenda."
"What if he doesn't, Blythe?" Lexi ventured. "What if he's come here for you?"
For one moment her heart leapt, but immediately she knew that wasn't possible. Even if it were, she would never take him back. He'd crushed her. He'd left her alone to deal with her mother and the aftermath of Ray's death. That had been bad enough, let alone her mother's drunken outbursts. Finding out the man she married wasn't even real had been a blow. And then the baby. How could she ever get over that? Had Viktor been there it never would have happened.
She shut down that way of thinking. He wasn't responsible. Her mother was. She had to keep the responsibility where it belonged, not on Viktor and not on her. She took a fortifying sip of tea and pushed at the stray strands of pale blond hair escaping her ponytail.
"He had five years to come for me, honey, and he didn't, so the chances of that being his reason is zero to none. He probably came to see his brothers. They're all here, he hasn't seen them in years, so it would be natural for him to want to see them."
"I'm so sorry about your daughter, Blythe," Airiana said. "Why didn't you tell us?"
The pain was too great. "Just thinking about my daughter, let alone talking about her, hurts too much." She swallowed down the lump threatening to choke her. "I named her Viktoria after him, and buried both of them, father and daughter."