“It was that morning your family attacked,” she says, surprising me as she starts to open up without further prodding. “He was… hungover from celebrating…”
Anika’s words taper off, and I know without asking that she means he must have gotten drunk to celebrate murdering my adoptive father.
Keeping my eyes focused on my task, I try not to show the wave of hatred that ripples through me.
“I let the eggs get cold. And when he told me, I started to argue,” she explains, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Then she shrugs one slender shoulder, her vivid blue eyes dimming. That look of defeat guts me.
I want to tell her that it wasn’t her fault—that none of it was her doing.
But I can’t seem to breathe, let alone find the words to speak.
Horror grips me as I see for the first time just what kind of hell she was living in.
“How long has this been going on?” I ask, carefully tying the bandage on her second foot before I look up to meet her eyes.
“Since the beginning?” she suggests, the statement sounding more like a question. Then she shakes her head. “It all went downhill after the wedding.”
“Christ, Anika,” I growl, my fury building when I think about how long Pyotr was hurting her—she was suffering for a year, and I never knew.
If I had, I would have torn his house down to come for her.
I was tempted to the night she ran into me at the gala—and that was before I had a clue he was demented enough to hit her.
But I hadn’t liked the way he steered her from the convention center. I never should have let her leave with him that night.
“Did he hurt you often?” I swallow hard, bracing for the answer.
If he only hurt her one time, it would be one too many, but I dread hearing that Pyotr put his hands on her regularly.
It makes me wish I’d cut his fingers off and stuffed them down his throat.
Still, I know he must have.
That’s the only way her reaction tonight could be so ingrained.
Dropping her gaze, Anika picks at the hem of her dress. “I learned when to avoid him—and how to keep the peace well enough,” she hedges. “But the drinking always made it worse.”
Releasing Anika’s ankle, I straighten to my full height and gently catch her jaw in the palm of my hand.
Electric heat crackles up my arm from the point of contact, but for the first time, I ignore it as I peer deep into her eyes, willing her to understand. “He had no right.”
20
ANIKA
My pulse leaps at the intensity in Miko’s eyes. There’s anger in their blue depths, but it doesn’t feel like it’s directed at me.
Instead, it’s a righteous anger, almost as if he’s furious on my behalf. But I don’t know that I can trust it.
I’m still waiting for my punishment.
Now that he’s stopped my feet from bleeding, he’ll want to give me a reason not to try running again.
I can feel the tension igniting the air between us.
My breaths quicken as I stare into his penetrating gaze, unable to look away.
