The way he looked at me like I’m something precious.
God help me, I think I’m falling for my captor.
10
MIKHAIL
The cemetery is quiet at dawn, the kind of silence that feels sacred and suffocating all at once.
I stand before Nicole’s grave, my hands shoved deep in my coat pockets, my breath forming clouds in the cold October air.
The marble headstone is simple, elegant, exactly what she would have wanted.
Nicole Artyomov
Beloved Sister
Forever Young, Forever Missed
I couldn’t bring myself to add the dates, a brutal reminder that she only got sixteen years on this Earth.
Sixteen years before those animals destroyed her.
Before I failed her.
I crouch down and brush fallen leaves from the base of the headstone.
My fingers trace her name, and the familiar guilt crashes over me like a wave.
Six months.
It’s been six months since I found her in that bathtub, the water red with her blood, her wrists slashed.
The note she left is burned into my memory.
I’m sorry, Misha. I can’t live with what they did to me. I can’t live with this thing growing inside me. Please forgive me.
I close my eyes, but that only makes the memories sharper.
I’m in my office when Elena bursts through the door, her face concerned. “Mr. Artyomov. It’s Nicole. She’s been in the bath too long and won’t answer.”
I take the stairs three at a time, my heart already knowing what my mind refuses to accept. The bathroom door is locked. I break it down with my shoulder, and the sight that greets me will haunt me until my dying day.
My baby sister, my Nicole, floating in crimson water. Her blonde hair spreads around her head like a halo. Her school uniform is still on, soaked through and stained. Her eyes are open, staring at the ceiling with an expression of such profound sadness that it steals my breath.
I pull her from the water, screaming her name, trying to find a pulse that isn’t there. Her skin is already cold. I was downstairs the entire time, working on my fucking ledgers while she bled out alone.
The paramedics arrive. They try to revive her, but it’s too late. It’s been too late since the moment she picked up that razor blade.
Later, the medical examiner confirms she was twelve weeks pregnant. Twelve weeks carrying the child of one of her rapists. The autopsy report lists the cause of death as exsanguination from self-inflicted wounds, but I know the truth. Those men killed her as surely as if they’d put a gun to her head.
I open my eyes and stare at the grave. “I’m sorry,moya malen’kaya,” I whisper in Russian.My little one. “I should have been there. I should have protected you.”
The wind picks up, rustling through the trees that surround the cemetery.
I stand and turn away from the grave, unable to look at it any longer. But I can’t escape the memories.
They follow me everywhere.
