He considers it, watching me in silence as I wait, my breath held tight in my lungs. I haven’t seen him in so long. It achesnot to be near him. But the look Ivan throws me next—of pity, of powerlessness over the situation—shows me he was already instructed of what to say if this ever happened.
“I’m sorry, Victoria—”
“Why aren’t you with Kiril? I messaged you,” my husband’s voice cuts him off from somewhere to my left. He passes me by like a dark silhouette, each step deliberate, filled with control. The trail of his subtle perfume strangles me. His name clings to my tongue, tasting bittersweet. I swallow, eyes trained on him—only on him.
Please forgive me, they tell him. But he won’t even spare me a glance.
“Sorry, boss. I was just on my way now.”
Ivan leaves, and before Wolf follows him out, I get his attention.
“Wolf… please, we need to talk.”
To my surprise, he turns to me, but there’s nothing of him that I remember. He looks at me the same way he looks at everyone else now. Like I’m just one of his subjects.
“Tell me how I can make this right,” I whisper.
“You want to make things right? Then stop making my men late when I need them.”
I blink, feeling the sting of his words everywhere. I bet he sees it—the pain written all over my face. But he still turns and walks away. And I think… I think for the first time ever, he doesn’t see me as his wife… or his pawn in a revenge game. He sees me as a mistake.
Although every atom in my body wants me to retreat, to hide in a corner and cry, I rush after him and grab his hand. He halts, and when his eyes slide over to me, fire blasts through them. All for me.
“Please…”
“Say it. Say what you did.”
I grip his hand tighter, whispering, “I–I betrayed you. And I’m so…”
He shakes his head, snorting an incredulous laugh.
“You’re not even willing to give me a confession, yet you beg for my forgiveness.”
I grind my teeth together in shame. There’s so much shame coursing through me right now, when he looks at me. He’s right. I can’t give him a confession, because evenIcan’t believe how much I hurt him. Neither of us can.
“I told Ekaterina…” I say, my body weakening, barely standing up. “I told her you lied to your father, because you said you couldn’t afford any screw ups. I told her that, and she told him, so that you’d never get…” I choke on almost every word, holdingon to him so I don’t fall. “So that you’d never get your throne. And I m-made a mistake. I lost you. I lost you. I lost…”
I sob, covering my face with my hands, dropping to my knees. I sob, and I break, and I swim in my own pain, hearing the sound of his shoes as he walks away.
I thought I knew pain before, that I had lived through plenty of it throughout my life. But nothing—absolutely nothing compares to the kind I’m feeling now. It’s excruciating. And it keeps on growing inside me, like a demon making a home of me, turning every chamber of my heart into hell.
“…you,” I murmur, even though I know he’s no longer here to hear it. “I lost you.”
***
Hours later, I’m back in bed, staring into nothingness. The room is dark, cold even, a gentle rain splattering on my closed windows. I guess summer is really ending.
I’ve cried so much the past week that there are no more tears left in me.
I turn on my left side, letting my eyes close. Hoping sleep will grab me faster tonight. But when I do, a muted thud downstairs makes me open them back. The house is always so silent—nothing ever happens inside. It strikes me as odd, but whoknows? Maybe someone dropped something, and that’s what the sound was.
Except it wasn’t, because it happens again.
Angry voices come with it, one of which I recognize. Ivan. And maybe Kiril… and some other men all barging into the house. I get up on my arms, the sheets shifting with me. Something is wrong.
Are we being attacked again? I didn’t hear any gunshots.
Draping my legs over the mattress, I jolt out of bed and open the door, peering into the semi-lit hallway that captures some of the lights from downstairs. The voices pour in more clearly now—and they sound agitated. Not angry, but… desperate. Curses follow almost every other word, and panic grips me when I start making sense of what this is.
