She wasn’t in physical danger—she was too good a girl for that—but I could easily see her being married off before she was ready.
Inessa had been fortunate to hit eighteen before she was forced to tie herself to Eoghan for life. But Svetlana would want Victoria out of the house as soon as she physically could, and once I was out of the picture, there were only two years before she could legally, with his permission, get married to Abramovicz—unless he died first.
I had to pray that was the case, had to pray that Victoria would be safe from his clutches because seventeen was far too young to wed anyone, never mind an old man. Yet even as I thought about that thorn in my side, I realized that Abramovicz was only a part of the problem.
My father was the real thorn.
One that dug so deep into my skin that it made the razor blades that cut through my flesh like a fork through buttery lobster appear dulled.
He’d always be a danger to my sisters.
Even after she’d married, I knew he’d caused Inessa problems. Had known that without Brennan confirming it today.
The second I was under his roof again and he was back from the hospital, his first item of business had been to work on tying me to his Sovietnik.
My being in danger was one thing, but once Svetlana had his brat, Victoria’s safety would be in jeopardy too.
I needed her out from under this roof.
I needed her away from the poison that was our father.
My mind was so slow that it felt like it was sludging through mud, but time wasn’t as kind. If anything, it flew, so damn fast that, within seconds, he wasn’t ten feet away from me but three. The wheelchair hurtling toward me, making me feel like a pin at a bowling alley that he was trying to ram down.
I stepped out of the way, huddling into the nook, but his hand reached for mine, his fingers digging into my wrist as he jerked me down.
“Why the fuck were you conferring with the Irish? Did they ask you to spy on me?”
Saliva spattered from his mouth, splashing me with his acid. I struggled, trying to get him to let go of me, knowing his grip would leave bruises in the morning, but the more I struggled to free myself from his iron grip, the tighter his hold became.
And then he reached for my other hand.
The one holding the pyramid.
His eyes glinted with malice as he snarled, “And what do you think you’re going to do with that?”
He’d hurt me worse over the years than a too-hard grip to my wrist.
He’d slapped me, hit me with a belt. He’d choked me a few times, especially those initial occurrences where I’d refused to marry the man he’d picked for me and just before I’d run away to the territory of the biggest baddies I could think of, far away from his reach, deep in a land that offered more protection in its public park than most Russians had in the comfort of their own homes with the doors fully locked.
I knew what it was like to be terrorized.
Saw the same shadows in my younger sister’s eyes, and knew Inessa was just as polluted with our father’s toxicity, and I knew it was my fault.
I’d never protected them.
I’d left them.
I’d let my younger sister protect the baby of the family. I’d run away, I’d abandoned them. I knew what I’d left behind, too. That was why I never pushed Inessa. Why I understood her lack of interest in me, and why her call today had come as such a surprise.
I’d let them down.
I’d relinquished them to this monster’s care.
And when I thought about how Mama had done the same, something inside me snapped.
Just as he was snarling, “Hand me your belt, Maxim,” something clicked inside my mind.
He was going to hit me with it.