Page 70 of Bratva Sacrifice

I want to run my hand down her back to soothe her, but I have seen the whole of her. She is one long mass of bruises and abrasions. All I can do is cradle her against my body and infuse my warmth into her cold skin.

Her nails turn to claws, raking at my arm where it lies draped over her. I can be glad of the sting—in sleep, at least, Katya fights her demons.

And I have made myself the worst of them.

Chapter Thirty Four

Alexei

You have to eat, koshechka.” The words come out rougher than I intend them, rife with frustration. It has been a week since I pulled her from the pit. Her stitches have been removed. Her lacerations have scabbed over; a combination of attentive care and the antibiotics the doctor prescribed. Her body is healing.

The rest of her is not, even if she is not catatonic any longer. It took another two days to snap her out of it, but it is clear that she is still not well. Worse still, she has yet to speak a word—to me, or to anyone. She ignores anyone who approaches her. Except for me.

From me, she flinches. Katya fears me now.

Every ounce of affection I won from her has faded in the wake of that fear. She will not meet my eyes. She indulges in none of the things she once enjoyed. The Katya who delighted in her many bottles of nail polish, in burying herself in books and watching her documentaries and crime dramas—that Katya is gone.

She will not return to our room willingly. Every night, when the sedatives that help her sleep through it begin to take effect, she disappears. I have to track her movements on the security feed, find her in whatever deserted corner of the house she has hidden herself away in to sleep, and carry her back to our bed. She figured out early that a locked door would not keep me from her. Every morning when she wakes, she jerks herself away from the safety of my arms and flees.

She is back to the escape attempts. Three days ago I was forced to remove her fingerprint from the security system when I caught her looking at the razor wire that wreaths the fences with true consideration, and again she is confined solely to the house. Now every day she searches once more for vulnerabilities in my security. I know she will not find them, but the thought of losing her chills me. She suffered once because I only thought she ran from me. She must believe she risks it again on the possibility of escape. But she would rather suffer than stay.

Staying is worse than suffering.

I can see her retreating as I approach, curling into herself. Her bare feet curl beneath the hem of the oversized sweater she wears, one of several I bought for her because she will not wear her own things any longer. She makes herself as small as possible, and a sliver of pain slices through my heart.

This is the same thing she did in the video Anatoli delivered to me, the one he recovered from her family’s security system. When her father, her uncles, crowded around her as she lay on the floor chained to a steel pole, raining blows with their feet anywhere left unprotected. The dull thud of boots into flesh sickens me still. And Katya could only curl herself into a tight little ball, protecting herself as best she could. She protects herself from me as she did from them.

They bruised three of her ribs and gave her a severe concussion. They cut her beautiful skin with a box cutter, gave her scars she will bear forever. And then they threw her back to me, hoping I would kill her for them. Just lately, I have wondered if it might have been kinder if I had.

I kneel beside her chair, watching, waiting—striving for a patience that is against my nature. Her breakfast, gone cold well over two hours ago, sits untouched on the table before her. She is wasting away before my eyes. Malnourished, as the doctor said. Starving, because she will not eat enough even to keep a bird alive.

“Look at me, koshechka,” I urge, but her eyes are squeezed tightly shut. Expecting a blow. This is what I have taught her to anticipate from me. Pain. Terror. Abuse. My fingers find her hair, stroking through the silky strands like I used to. Like she used to enjoy. Now, she trembles like a leaf in a high wind. She expects only pain from me.

“No? Listen, then.” My fingertip strokes the shell of her ear. “You are never going back there, no matter what you do. I will never again let anyone take you from me. I will never send you down into the dark, and I will never let you be hurt, no matter the provocation.” She cringes from my fingers, and my stomach curdles. My words are worthless to her, my apologies and promises meaningless, of no substance. My touch is an insult; an abomination she only endures because she must. I force down the sympathy that makes me want to coddle her, to cosset her. “Katya, I am running out of patience. If you will not care for yourself, you force me to do this instead.”

She buries her face in her folded arms, as if she can will me away if she only refuses to look. She is fearful even now, bracing herself for a blow that will not come.

“Your breakfast has grown cold,” I say. “I will have a fresh plate sent up—but you will eat it.” I let the weight of a threat seep into the words, and I know by the shiver that runs through her that she will take them to heart. I hate that I must use her fear against her; it only reinforces her lack of trust in me. But her health is more important than my feelings, more important than her dread. And she is wasting. Fading.

Soon enough she will slip through my fingers, insubstantial as a shadow.

She makes a sound of palpable relief when I let my fingers fall away from her face.

And I go to give the order for a fresh breakfast—and to take my unspent rage out upon Piotr.

∞∞∞

It is an hour later that I watch her race out of the library in a panic over the security feed, just moments after her fresh breakfast was delivered to her there. I feel like a voyeur lately. The bulk of my time is spent watching her like this. My presence upsets her; this is the only way I can watch her without inciting fear.

I track her through the house in her frantic flight. She tries windows, doors, skirts members of my staff. They have been instructed to let her pass, only to intervene if she runs any risk of actually succeeding in her little escape attempts. But my home is secure. There is no way for her to make it outside.

She is not worried about being discovered today. She is only desperate. There is usually a bit more finesse to her attempts, more subterfuge. Today looks only for an opportunity—any opportunity.

I watch as she crashes at last into a receiving room on the ground floor, overlooking the street. There is a fireplace against the far wall. I know her plan even before she does. She grabs the poker, wields it like a weapon, and smashes it against the window. The shock of the strike ricochets back, and she nearly topples over the coffee table behind her.

My windows are bulletproof. Every man in my position would have the same. They can withstand far more than the few puny blows she manages to inflict. Perhaps she might have succeeded in inflicting a few scratches, but nothing serious. She knows this already; she has already tried this tactic with a bronze bust.

But she tries again anyway. A few more blows, and her chest is heaving with the effort, her whole body shaking. She is weak enough already; she cannot withstand much more of this. I see the moment the realization hits her. If this room, this tiny room in a disused corner of the house, is so well-protected—she stands no chance. There is no escape.