Now that it’s over, I realize I must have suffered a flashback. Pyotr’s dead, so he can’t hurt me anymore.
But I’m still trying to make sense of what triggered it, and I feel terrible for screaming at Miko like I did.
“If Mikhail laid a hand on you…” Svetlana starts, her tone dripping with vitriol as she breaks my train of thought.
“What?” I ask, propping myself up on my elbow so I can turn to look at her. “No. No, it wasn’t that,” I insist, knowing that she means Miko even if she’s calling him by her son’s name. It’s a habit of Svetlana’s I haven’t been fully able to break, butit’s harmless, and thankfully, Miko doesn’t seem to mind since Svetlana can’t help it. “Miko would never hurt me,” I assure her, confident in the fact even if I’m still confused about what happened.
“Okay,” Svetlana says, her milky gaze closely scrutinizing my face. “Then, what did happen between you two? And don’t tell me it was a simple lover’s spat,” she warns. “I’ve never heard you so terrified.”
My stomach knots when I think about telling her the truth. Because this isn’t about Miko. Not really.
It’s about Svetlana’s great-grandson, and it feels wrong to my very bones to tell her any of the horrible things Pyotr was capable of.
Lowering my head back to her lap, I close my eyes and brace myself as I search for the words to tell her my deepest, darkest, ugliest secret. A secret I’ve only ever told one person before now.
I think of Miko—that night he listened so patiently as he carefully cleaned and bandaged my cut feet.
My chest squeezes when my mind follows the memory up with his pained expression in the foyer just now. I shouldn’t have left things between us the way I did.
But I was too confused and emotional to work out what had happened. The least I can do is clear his name, but that means confessing to Svetlana.
“I’m scared you’ll hate me if I tell you,” I whisper, a single tear squeezing out from the corner of my eye and rolling down my temple. I feel emotionally raw and exhausted, like I’ve been lost far from home and crying for hours.
“Child. Nothing you say could make me hate you. As far as I’m concerned, my sun rises and sets around you. You’re the daughter I never had—the granddaughter and great-granddaughter too. I will love you with every breath, right to my very last. So, tell me.”
A strangled sob catches in my throat, and I drape my arm across Svetlana’s lap, hugging her as best I can. “You’re the only family I have,” I confess.
She’s the only one who’s ever truly looked out for me—at least until Miko.
“Now, tell me. What happened?”
“I… saw Pyotr,” I confess.
With vivid clarity, I suddenly recall my intense orgasm right before my flashback.
I can still feel the effects of having Miko’s hard length buried inside me, and in a flash, I’m intensely aware of the sticky arousal between my thighs.
I press them together, my cheeks warming when I think about what we were doing before I completely lost my mind.
And now I’m hiding away in Svetlana’s bedroom, too embarrassed to talk about what happened and mortified over facing the consequences.
“Like a ghost?” Svetlana gently prods when the silence stretches too long.
“No.” I furrow my brow, keeping my eyes closed tight as I try to recall the details. I want to figure out what triggered me so badly—so I know what not to do next time.
The smell of whiskey is the most obvious culprit. It always made Pyotr mean, and tonight, it was making me tense before I’d even identified the smell. I should have said something, but I didn’t want Miko to stop.
Then, my heart jolts as I recall the way he pinned my hands over my head. In the moment, it felt… hot.
Like he wanted me to just lie back and enjoy the pleasure without trying to reciprocate.
But it also felt too confined.
Like I couldn’t escape—or fight back.
A violent shudder ripples through me, and I know that’s what did it. Because that’s exactly what Pyotr used to do if I ever tried to say no to him.
Svetlana is patient, waiting for me to explain myself as her hand returns to gently stroking my hair, and as my pulse slowly settles, I take a deep, steadying breath before I dive into my confession.
