“Anya,” she rasps. That name rocks me to my very core. It’s one I haven’t heard since the day I arrived in Montana. It’s a name even I tried to forget existed. Kat’s hands clamp around my arms, pulling my hands from her face. But her hold is tight. Too tight. Desperate. “You weren’t supposed to be here,” she repeats, but the words are harsher this time.
“What do you mean? I wasn’t supposed to be where?”
Her grip tightens. “Here. In Montana. You weren’t supposed to be here. You were supposed to stay in New York. Stay with Aleksandr.”
What is she talking about?
I shake my head, like the motion itself will straighten out what she’s just said. “Katerina, Aleksandr is dead. You left. He died. And I was engaged to Maxim.”
My sister’s eyes widen. “You—what—no.I made them send me away so that wouldn’t happen. I didn’t know how to get us both out, but I knew you’d be better off with Aleksandr. They were supposed to give you tohim.I made them send me away.”
Give me tohim?She made them send her away? What is she even—
“You were never supposed to be here, Anya,” she repeats for the third time. And even though the words are the same, this time they’re laced with so much devastation, so much sorrow, it rocks me to my very core. “They know about you now.”
Cold slices straight down my spine. “Who?” I whisper.
She shakes her head sharply and steps to move past me toward the door. Lucy barks louder as she approaches, but with onemovement of my hand, she heels. “Not here. We can’t talk here. Come with me.”
Every instinct in me screamsno.
To run back to the house and tell the boys that she’s here. Mysisteris here.
But there’s that one voice, it’s small but so,soloud, that tells me the second I take my eyes off her, I may never see her again.
She’s here.
Kat’s alive.
And I don’t want to lose her again.
“Lucy,” I say, looking down at her. Immediately, her eyes find mine, and I swear there’s a sense of panic there. As if she’s pleading with me to stay put. To keep her close. But I know if she follows me, she’ll only make more noise, and I don’t want Kat to run if Lucy draws more attention to her. So, I give her a faint smile, hoping she believes that I’m not as scared as I am. “Go home.”
She looks up at me for a moment longer, as if she were giving me time to change my mind, before she turns her gaze to the barn door and takes off like a shot across the driveway.
I look at my sister before she turns, and I follow her out into the snow.
The barn lights fade behind us as we move toward the trees, the world narrowing to the sound of our breaths and the crunch of our boots.
She stops abruptly.
“I’m sorry,” she says, still facing away. “I’msosorry, Anya. I thought I was keeping you safe. I didn’t want to leave you. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“Kat. None of what you’re saying is making any sense. Why did you want me to marry Aleksandr?”
“Because Mama and Papa still owed them!” she shouts as she turns to face me, her chest heaving. Tears streaming down herface. “Mama and Papa still owed them, and they wantedyou.Maximwantedyou.I lived in that house. I saw the things that happened. The Novikov’s were horrible people, Anya, but Maxim…” She swipes at the tears staining her cheeks. “I had to save you from him.I had to.”Her voice cracks at those words. She looks devastated. Broken. “I didn’t know how to fix all of it, how to get us out of the mess Mama and Papa created, but I knew Aleksandr would be better than the alternative. So… I fought. I pushed. I instigated and disobeyed until they realized I wasn’t worth the hassle. I knew if they got rid of me, they’d give you to Aleksandr. He was the heir. He needed one of us. I thought I was doing the right thing getting sent away. But it didn’t matter because he—”
“Died,” I finish. “Aleksandr died, and I became Maxim’s anyway.”
“I did it all for nothing. And now I’m here, working for—” she shakes her head. Kat’s eyes close for a long moment as the snow continues to fall around us. I watch as she takes a deep breath, opens her eyes, and one last tear falls over her cheeks. “You weren’t supposed to know them. You weren’t supposed to be here.” Her voice is soft now. It sounds so much like the big sister I grew up with. But we’re nothing like those girls now. We’re women. Women who have had to deal with the consequences of other people’s choices over and over andoveragain. And that sends me over the edge.
“Stop saying that!” I shout through the night.
She doesn’t say anything.
She just turns and walks closer toward the treeline.
And I follow.
