It all feels like everything that happened before the cabin was a dream. A life that didn’t belong to me, and that I’m someone else now.
Slowly, I trace the outline of the marks on my body, and I wonder how many of them will scar. How many will stay with me for the rest of my life, making it impossible to ever forget what happened? How many of them will continue to be an outward reminder of my inward pain? Thin white lines crisscrossing my body and making it so that I can’t ever erase it.
I’m going to look at myself forever and always think of this. That thought makes me feel so despondent that I have to grab on to the edge of the sink for a moment, my knees feeling weak and watery again. I’ve never felt so alone.
I need someone here with me, and all I have is Viktor. The thought would make me laugh if it wasn’t so bleak.
Carefully, I make my way back to the bed, inching along until I can lower myself back down onto the mattress. When I’m horizontal again, under the blanket that has come to feel like the only safe space left for me in the world, I close my eyes and hope that I can fall asleep again.
If I’m lucky, I won’t have any more dreams.
All it does is make me long for a past that I hadn’t even known I wanted until it was gone, and remind me that my future is now one that I can’t even picture.
I’d rather not think about it at all.
CATERINA
I’m woken up by the sound of footsteps coming into the room. I grab for the blanket immediately, clutching at it as my eyes fly open, and I scoot backward in the bed, ignoring the jolt of pain that shoots through me at the sudden movement. It takes me a moment to realize that it’s Viktor—holding a tray with what looks like food on it, which is something I’d never thought I would see.
My cold Bratva husband of convenience, bringing me breakfast in bed. Maybe I did die after all and woke up in—well, this isn’t heaven exactly, but maybe it’s whatever is in between. Not quite bad enough to be hell, but not good enough to be paradise.
“You’re awake.” Viktor sounds genuinely happy about it, which surprises me. He comes around to the side of the bed, setting down the tray to one side. He leans over as if to help me up, moving another pillow behind me so that I can sit upright. His touch is gentle, and he holds me there for a second while I fight the throb of pain that shoots through me at sitting upright for the first time in days, as if he knows. As if he’s aware of me in a way that I had no idea he could be.
Once I’m settled in the bed, he sets the tray over my lap, and I get a glimpse at what’s actually on it. It’s nothing fancy, just some scrambled eggs and what looks like a piece of ham and a glass of milk. My stomach rumbles suddenly, cramping with a hunger that I hadn’t felt until exactly that second, that reminds me that I don’t even know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten. I feel a wave of dizziness and close my eyes for a moment. I can feel Viktor’s gaze on me.
“Go slowly,” he instructs as I pick up the fork by the chipped china plate. I can’t help but notice the stark difference between this and the way breakfast would have been served back at Viktor’s home—on fine china, in the elegant dining room. And yet, he seems at ease here in the rustic cabin, with chipped plates and woodsman clothing. It’s a side of Viktor I wouldn’t have pictured and one that I’d almost like to investigate further if I had the energy.
“You haven’t eaten in several days,” he continues, nodding towards the food. “It could make you very sick, even kill you, if you go too fast.”
I want to laugh at that. Thatwouldbe irony, to survive Stepan and Andrei and be killed by the first real meal I eat after that. My instinct is to devour everything, especially as my stomach cramps again with an even more intense hunger. But I force myself to go slowly, forking up the tiniest bit of the eggs that I can manage. I think Viktor knows what he’s talking about, and the last thing I want to do is make myself feel worse than I already do.
“Drink a little in between bites,” he instructs. “But not too fast for that, either.”
I can’t remember the last time I drank actual milk. It tastes incredible, whether because of the thing itself or just because I’m so hungry, and it’s all I can do not to start shoving the food into my mouth faster than I can chew.
“Where on earth did you find all this?” I ask, glancing sideways at him. I’m too overcome from the food and hunger to keep my distance from him, or think too much about what I’m saying.
“I sent some of the men out to find supplies. They bought some food from a nearby farm and brought it back.” Viktor says it casually, as if that doesn’t sound like the most insane thing my Manhattan-dwelling self has ever heard.
“A farm?”
“Yes,” he says patiently, with a crinkle of humor around his eyes. “Don’t worry, they were very polite about the whole thing. We compensated the farmers well.”
Well, it’s good to know they didn’t just steal it or kill them and take it,I think wryly. The idea of Viktor’s men asking politely for anything feels like a bit of an oxymoron.
“So this is like—fresh.” I eye the glass of milk. Maybe the taste isn’t just because I’m so hungry. All the food must be, and I slowly bring a forkful of the eggs to my lips, closing my eyes in ecstasy at how good they are. There’s cheese in them somewhere, and some kind of spice and all I want to do is eat until I’m completely stuffed.
“Very,” Viktor agrees. He’s watching me intently, as if he wants to be sure that I’m going to eat. He watches me take a bite of food and then another, and when I set the fork down after the third, suddenly exhausted, he leans forward.
“Here,” he says gently. “Let me.”
Before I can say anything to stop him, he reaches over, cutting off a piece of the ham and lifting it to my lips. “Here,” he says gently. “Just eat. I’ll help you.”
How is this real?I watch him with surprise in my face that I can’t hide because I’ve never been able to picture Viktor doing any of the things that he’s done for me so far. Bathing me, helping me up, feeding me—all of those gentle, caregiver sort of things that feel so out of character for him. But maybe they’re not. Just like the ease with which he seems to move around the cabin, just like how he seems at home in his hiking gear as a bespoke suit, maybe there’s something I haven’t seen before.
Maybe there’s a different side to the man I’ve married that I’ve never known about before. That I could never have imagined.
It’s so hard to fathom. This is a man who oversees a business I feel is deplorable, who bargained for my hand in marriage, who threatened war if he wasn’t given what he wanted. A man with power that frightens me sometimes, a man who other men are afraid of. A man that I hadn’t wanted.