Page 81 of Bratva Sacrifice

No one dries my tears. No one holds me. No one speaks to me even if I never deign to talk back. No one sends me breakfast in the morning or tucks blankets around me when I kick them off. No one cares for me when I’m incapable of caring for myself.

We’re just done. Without any sort of closure. And I feel like half of myself has been severed. Like I’ve lost something important, and I didn’t even recognize it until it was no longer there.

Ya tebya lyublyu. Remember.

My eyes close. I think those words weren’t really ever meant for Catalina. They were meant for Catherine. He knew he was abandoning me. He knew it, and he never really told me. He knew it, and he never actually said goodbye. Didn’t I deserve that? After everything he put me through, didn’t I deserve at least the courtesy of an actual goodbye?

This new life was a freedom that I asked for. I just didn’t know how miserable it would make me. And I can’t take it back now. I can’t rewind the clock and ask for something else. There is no simple solution, no changing my mind.

Catalina Russo is already dead.

My life, such as it is, is a string of regrets. Is it even fair to be angry when he only gave me what I wanted, what I asked for over and over again? But I am—so, so angry. The broken parts of me ache.

It’s been months already. I don’t think this pain will ever fade.

Chapter Forty Two

Alexei

I am slowly going insane. It is a drawn-out process, but the effect is undeniable.

Anatoli advises me to disconnect the cameras. He says it would be a simple matter to invent a reason that Katya needs to vacate her home for a few hours, have men slip in under the disguise of a utility company investigating a potential problem, and tear everything down. It would solve my voyeuristic problem, eradicate my ability to watch her. A cleaner break than I have been able to achieve thus far.

Still, I cannot bring myself to do this. I cannot surrender this one part of her that is still mine.

This is also the primary cause of my unraveling. Every day, I see her doing a little worse. It starts with lingering over a bottle of wine every night. Not even one of the sweet wines she prefers. Most nights she is up until dawn is peeking over the horizon. Then she collapses on her bed and lays like the dead for hours.

I am not entirely certain she is even sleeping. I know she is awake one afternoon because I see her fingers drift lazily across the mattress, as if searching for a companion who is no longer there. But eventually they fall flat once more, and she does not move again until nightfall, though her eyes remain open. She stares at the ceiling, but she sees nothing.

I do not understand this. She should be thriving. It has been months. I am sure certain memories are painful still, but she does not even attempt to heal herself, to replace these bad memories with new ones. She needs to get out of the house, make those plans she talked about, meet people, make friends. Teach, like she has wanted all her life.

But she does not do any of these things. She does not adopt the fucking cat she wanted. She does not change into any of the bathing suits available to her. She does not sit on the beach, even though winter is approaching and the time for her to do so is growing short. She is still as pale and colorless as she was her last days with me.

Some nights she cooks. Most evenings she seems to get bored halfway through, leaving whatever she was assembling where it lays, half completed, on the stove or the cutting board. One night she makes it nearly to the end—she is chopping some leafy green vegetables for what looks like a salad, and then she makes an amateur mistake. She drops the knife. And tries to catch it as it falls.

Luckily, the consequences are minor. A small cut on her palm, easily patched with a bandage.

But two nights later, the bandage is gone, and as she sits in her chair at the window, I see her picking at the scab that has formed. The same way she did in the shower. As if hurting is preferable to feeling nothing at all.

This dark road she travels is one that I placed her upon. This is my fault. My responsibility. I have never been one to shirk them, and Katya—she comes before all else.

Once, many months ago now, Anatoli asked me what the limits of my obsession were. I laughed at him, secure in my certainty that I could control all things. I was wrong. Some things are beyond my limits. There is no limit for her.

It is not even a difficult decision in the end.

And so I call for Anatoli, and when he arrives, I tell him the only thing he needs to know.

I tell him I need him to kill me.

Chapter Forty Three

Catherine

There are certain open secrets in the world. It’s difficult for people who seek the limelight to stay out of it—socialites and millionaires dominate news headlines. It’s the billionaires you rarely see, because they do know how to stay beneath notice. They guard their privacy, because privacy is their greatest asset. There are certain kinds of attention you don’t want in certain lines of business, and the mafia is careful to stay out of the news as much as possible. They buy off the right people and hide their secrets from public consumption. Most people never think about them, because they never hear about them. It’s a delicate balancing act, being a name that the right people fear and the wrong ones don’t even know.

There’s very little of Alexei’s life online. He doesn’t have a social media presence. There’s no mafia-branded website to discover. He doesn’t go to high-profile events, even if he’s wealthy enough that he might’ve merited an invitation.

It’s impossible to discover his phone number, his email address. It’s very much a don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you sort of thing. The people who need to know, know. The people who don’t never will. And for months now I have been firmly in the doesn’t need to know camp.