13
CATERINA
When the van finally comes to a stop, it’s several minutes before we have any idea where we are. We haven’t stopped once since leaving Viktor’s safe house, and all of us are in desperate need of water and a chance to use some kind of bathroom and starving on top of it. I don’t know how much time has passed. It feels like hours, but it was hard to tell in the darkness of the van. Both Anika and Yelena have soiled themselves, much to the disgust of the guards, who made a point of mocking them to tears over it. Sasha and I both tried to comfort them, but all of our nerves are at the breaking point, and I’m seething with anger like I’ve never felt before.
I’ve never wanted tohurtsomeone as violently as I want to hurt Alexei. Not even for myself, but for my friends, and most of all for my stepdaughters. The fact that I’ve promised to willingly do anything he asks makes me sick to my stomach, but I know I can’t go back on it. I have no doubt that he’ll make me rue the day I broke that particular bargain, even if he can’t outright kill our men any longer.
He’d find some way to make up for it, I’m sure of that. Which means that I have to stick to my word and hope that I can be a barrier between him and the others. I have to hope that I’m strong enough.
After what happened to me when I was abducted in Moscow, I’m not so sure. Every moment since Alexei and his men stormed the safe house has made me feel as if I’m reliving it all again, the trauma that I haven’t even really had time to process rearing its ugly head and making me want to dissolve into a panic.
I’ve held it together, somehow. And I have to keep doing so, just for a little while longer. Alexei is more sophisticated than the men who tortured me in that cabin, even if he’s also clearly a sadist. He has a use for me, so he won’t hurt me the way they did. I just have to be strong.
I can do it.All my life, I was raised to be a mafia wife, to stand at my husband’s side and turn a blind eye, to raise children and kiss him when he came home and warm his bed and never, ever judge anything that he did. By the standards of a good woman that I was raised with, I’ve failed.
But no one ever told me about this darker side of it. No one ever told me I might face things like this, that I might have to face men like Andrei and Stepan and Alexei down and hold my ground. That I might have to save my husband instead of the other way around.
No one ever told me that it might not be all babies and dinner parties and ignoring the lipstick on my husband’s collar and pretending that I don’t know about the blood on his hands.
No one said there might be blood on my hands, too.
And now, I want it. I want Alexei’s blood. I want to pay him back for everything he’s done. It’s more visceral even than what I felt when I held that gun to Stepan’s head. I wonder if instead of being the good mafia wife that I was raised to be, I’m becoming one of them instead.
Strong. Fierce. Ruthless when it comes to the ones I love.
I’d rather be that than a woman like my mother, no matter how much I loved her. She never stood up to my father even once, never talked back to him, never suggested that anything he did might be wrong, even when I knew she thought it.
I refuse to be spineless or cowed in the face of anything that Alexei might throw at me.
When the van doors open, I make sure I’m at the front. Sasha is just behind me with Anika and Yelena, and Sofia sticks close to Ana, so that when I hear Alexei shout orders for the men to hustle us out, we leave the van roughly in that arrangement.
It’s dark out. I can barely see anything, other than the vague outlines of where we are, illuminated by the moon overhead. We’re still in the mountains—further in, quite possibly, from what I can see—and there are no lights on in or around the house in front of us. I can see the shapes of high walls and a gate further down the drive and gravel crunches under my bare feet as the guards jostle us forwards, my skin prickling from the cold.
It’s much colder here, the kind that crawls along your skin and sinks into your bones. None of us are dressed for it, and we’re all shivering as we’re marched towards the front door of the house. As we get closer, I can see that it’s large and made of dark stone, rising up three or four stories and sprawling out over the cleared land in the middle of the forest around us. It’s not as large as Viktor’s fortress that we just left, but it’s still sizeable, and I glance towards Alexei, narrowing my eyes.
“This isn’t yours.” I nod towards the house. “You were my husband’s brigadier. You couldn’t have something like this.”
“That’s none of your business, bitch,” one of the guards snarls, jabbing me hard in the ribs with the butt of his gun.
“Now, now.” Alexei smiles, his teeth white even in the darkness. “There’s no reason to be rude to Mrs. Andreyva, even if she’s making assumptions. But of course, you’re right. It’s not mine.” His smile broadens, not quite meeting his eyes, but wide nonetheless, almost mocking. “It used to be your husband’s. He gave it to one of his business associates as a gift for their long history of working together. It doesn’t seem that history prevented them from working with me. However, when I offered them something that Viktor wouldn’t. And now I have use of this house while I work on completing my takeover of everything that should have been mine all along.”
Something curdles in my stomach at the expression on his face. “What did you offer him?” I’m not sure I want to know, but I can’t stop myself from asking.
Alexei shrugs. “It’s not appropriate for your ears or some of the more delicate ones here. Let’s just say he wanted a rare pleasure that your husband’s moral code, such as it is, wouldn’t permit him to provide.”
A shudder ripples through me, and I press my lips tightly together. I don’t want to know. Viktor has done things that I think are truly despicable, but I’m glad to hear he has limits. I just don’t want to know what could be so horrible that Viktor would refuse to sell it or what kind of depravity exists in the world that I’m not yet aware of.
I’ve become aware of far too much in the past weeks. I’m not sure how much more I can take, if I’m being honest.
“The girls are cold,” I tell him, glancing at Anika and Yelena, shivering hard enough to make their teeth chatter as they cling to Sasha. “They need to be inside, warmed up, and given a bath. No one stopped to let us use the restroom.”
Alexei smirks. “My apologies. I’m unused to children and their needs, as they differ from adults.” He pushes the heavy wooden front door, swinging it open with a groaning creak, and gestures. “Go on in, and we’ll discuss what happens next.”
The last thing I want to do is walk inside that house. To bring my stepdaughters, Viktor’s children, into that house. But I know I don’t have a choice. And I need to be brave for everyone else.
So I tear my gaze away from Alexei’s face and stride forward into the dark house, my heart pounding in my throat as my bare feet strike the cold wooden floor.
“There’s no staff here yet,” Alexei says in his cool, accented voice as the rest of the group files inside. “It will be somewhat different from what you’re used to,tsarina. You’ll have to take care of yourselves here, for now at least.” He hits a light switch, and the room is suddenly full of yellow light, illuminating a large foyer with slightly dusty hardwood, opening out into an open-plan living room with covered furniture arranged in front of a massive stone fireplace.