Like I didn't exist. Like the tenderness moments ago had been my hallucination.
"Kirill..."
I whispered his name, forcing my legs to move, to follow.
God, why was fate so cruel? Why give me everything only to rip it away in an instant? Why let me taste happiness before throwing me off a cliff?
My mind was chaos. I just wanted to catch him, demand answers.
But I moved too fast. Tears blurred my vision. The slick marble floor, slippery with rain, was like ice.
I hit the ground hard. My knee slammed into the edge of the cold marble, blinding pain shooting through the bone and nearly knocking meunconscious.
I gasped, instinctively reaching for something to hold onto but finding only freezing rainwater.
Blood seeped from my knee, mixing with the rain on the marble and spreading into a vivid pale red.
Through the rain, I watched Kirill's back. He carried that woman like she was a priceless treasure, disappearing around the corner at the end of the hall.
"It's okay, Harper." I pressed my bleeding knee, talking to myself, desperate to believe it. "He'll come back."
Chapter Fourteen
Kirill
I stood beside the operating table, my black overcoat soaked through, hanging heavy on my shoulders. But I didn't feel the cold—Genevie had sucked up all my attention and frozen every one of my senses.
She lay on the gurney, eyes closed, an oxygen mask strapped over that face so pale it was almost translucent. Fragile. Breakable. The doctor cut away what was left of her silk gown, and as the fabric fell away piece by piece, the damage underneath blazed under the lights.
Bruises covered Genevie's body. The old ones were a sickly yellow-green, like mold spreading across a canvas. The fresh ones screamed purple-red, still weeping blood. Her arms showed clear fingerprints—someone had gripped her hard. A massive scrape ran across her ribs, like she'd been whipped repeatedly with a belt buckle. Even around her ankles, dark red welts circled the skin. Shackle marks. Long-term restraints.
"Goddamn it!"
I roared and slammed my fist down on the stainless steel tray. The metal shrieked. Every doctor froze and stared at me in terror.
"What the hell are you looking at? Keep going!" I snarled. "Ifanything happens to Genevie, I'll chop off your hands and feed them to the dogs."
The doctors trembled and went back to work, but even the lightest touch made the unconscious woman shudder.
My mind dragged me back five years to that afternoon. Genevie had come to me crying. The Sterling family was bankrupt. She had to marry Julian Dante. Back then, I'd just taken over the Orlov family, but I wasn't strong enough yet to go to war with the Dante family on the West Coast.
I'd backed down. Pushed Genevie into hell. In a way, I'd put her in that psycho's bed myself.
"Kirill..."
A weak voice came from the gurney.
My head snapped around. Genevie was awake. She'd curled into a ball, hands clutching her head, throat making garbled whimpering sounds.
"Don't hit me, please! Julian, I'm sorry, don't hit me..."
My heart clenched like someone had squeezed it in a vise.
"It's me, Genevie." I softened my voice, trying to calm her down. "I'm Kirill. This is New York. You're safe."
At the sound of my voice, her trembling eased. Slowly, she lifted her head and focused on my face.
"Kirill!"
