AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If she can’t see it, it can’t see her.
The problem for her, is that her monster isn’t a figment of her imagination. It’s real. And it has every intention of devouring every inch of her. I have every intention of devouring every inch of her. In time.
“Breathe,” I encourage, when the unevenness of her breaths becomes more desperate, more unmeasured.
“I can’t,” she rasps.
Fuck, now she’s trembling.
The need to ease her rushes though me, so I slide my hand across the space until I’ve found hers. I close mine around it, marveling for a moment at how small her hand is in mine. I begin to move my thumb gently back and forth over her smooth skin.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to ease you.”
She laughs, it’s nervous. “Why bother?”
“Because you are my wife.” My wife.
My mother is going to threaten the end of my life for marrying a woman she hasn’t met. And, of course, for not giving her the chance to plan a wedding—again. After the way she’d sobbed when Kane married his wife in much the same way, I should have known better. She’s surely going to mutter about a broken heart, and my father might just see her threat to end my life through.
“Not by choice,” she pouts.
I smile. She doesn’t see it. “I happen to recall your choice very clearly.”
She huffs, and makes to pull her hand from mine. But she’s not on the verge of panic any longer, so I consider it a mission complete.
I decide to keep her talking. It’s more than just to keep the edge of panic away. I want to know this woman. I want to know my wife.
“Will you tell me about your life growing up?”
She stiffens. “I don’t know anything about my father’s business.”
“I’m not asking about him.” She tilts her head to look at me. Her eyes are glassy. Hell. “I’m asking about you.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Everything. Anything.” I tell her the truth, “I want to know it all.”
“Why?”
“Because you are my wife.”
She considers for a moment, then she sighs. “I can’t reconcile the man you say my father was with the man I knew him to be.”
I stay quiet, because there isn’t much to say about who Ivan had been. I’m not a good man. I do bad things. Corrupt things. But I do have a soul, as shrouded in smoke and sin as it may be.
“I loved him so much,” she admits shakily. “I’m still not convinced—not completely—that the Ivan Popov you know is the same Ivan Petrov who raised me. Who loved me. That Ivan—my Ivan—wouldn’t have done the things you say he did.”
Her Ivan doesn’t exist. He’d been a con. A farce. I don’t say that, either. I simply wait for her to continue.
She does, with a shaky inhale. “I was close to my mom. She was a pediatric oncology social worker. It was hard work, but rewarding work. She was the definition of good. She believed, with every part of her heart and soul, in the grace and good of God. She faced pain with strength, and resilience, and prayer, because it was all God’s will. Everything—in her mind—was His will.” She’s crying now. It’s silent, but I can feel the tremble of her body in the bed. I can see the glisten of crystal tears as they slide over her temple into her hair. “I always believed in that will, too. I believed, and it grounded me in pain. In loss. In fear. But now—I can’t see—I can’t see how all of this—the truth of my father, being kidnapped and, and you. I can’t see how this is His will. I can’t feel Him anymore. I’m sad, and angry, and so, so alone.” She sobs now, and the sound of it cracks the impenetrable shell of my bulletproof heart. “I lost Mama and Daddy and my life. I have nothing.”
“That’s not true.” I prop myself to hover over her as she sobs. Her pain physically hurts me, I realize, as I watch her break apart. I want to catch her pieces, and stitch them together with the yarn I tear from the fabric of my own soul. “You have me.”
This is why my father reacts so viciously, so violently, when my mother cries.
Everything feels different now that she’s mine. Completely, wholly, mine.
