Page 79 of Wicked Heiress

Chapter Forty-Four

GRACE

I woke with a jolt. Adrenaline flooded my veins, my heart racing so fast I could hardly catch my breath. A man I hadn’t seen in years stood over me with a syringe in his hand.

He was an older man with dark, graying hair, maybe somewhere in his fifties. Like my dad, he had dark tattoos on his forearms and biceps. We were in my bedroom at Fort Marshall.

I blinked a few times and sat up. “Dr. Beck?”

“Oh, good.” He let out a relieved breath. “You remember me.” He sat on the edge of the bed, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Are you Katarina or Grace?”

My nose wrinkled as I looked at him, and I had to consider his question. I was both girls at different times in my life.

“I’m Grace.” I scooted closer to him. “Where’s my dad?”

“He’s on an assignment and doesn’t have access to a phone,” he said in a hushed tone. “Drake Battle called me after you…”

Murdered your uncle.

“I killed someone,” I choked out, tears staining my cheeks. “My uncle. The man who killed Willow Marshall.”

He bobbed his head to agree. “In my line of work, we call that a justified kill.” Dr. Beck flattened his hand against my forehead as if checking my temperature. “What do you remember after you killed Andrey? You were speaking in Russian.”

I hadn’t spoken Russian in so long that I wondered if I could converse anymore. My dad taught it to me almost as soon as I could talk. It was his native tongue, and he often spoke to his friends in the same language. He said it was to keep people from overhearing them.

“I saw the day my mother was murdered before I blacked out.” Putting my face in my hands, I sobbed as the horrible memory flashed before my eyes, playing in my head like a movie. “She was…”

“Stay with me, Grace.” Dr. Beck put his hand on my forearm. “Can you recall any details of that day?”

In all the years of our therapy, this was the one memory I could never unlock. It was as if my mind hid it behind so many doors I could never reach it. Only those rare moments when I saw blood. Saw her body on the floor. But I couldn’t piece it all together.

I nodded. “I saw my father.” I closed my eyes and breathed deeply through my nose. “And there was blood.”

“That’s good, Grace.” He pressed his lips into a thin line, his dark eyes on me. “Can you tell me anything else? Do you know how she died?”

“She was murdered,” I said, sure of my response.

When I asked my grandfather who murdered her, he said my father shot her. But in my visions, my father didn’t hurt her. I felt his love for my mother and me. That man, my papa, was my hero. And before we were separated, he promised never to stop looking for me.

He kept that promise.

Dr. Beck reached into his pocket and removed his cell phone. “I think I know what triggered your flashbacks. Are you okay with me playing a song for you?”

I nodded.

“Tell me how this song makes you feel.”

Dr. Beck hit a button on his cell phone. Seconds later, a familiar but haunting tune filled the silence between us. Bayushki Bayu, a man sang in a deep but soothing voice. Then, with only a few words, images flashed before my eyes.

I was watching TV with my parents in the living room when a loud bang sounded at the front of the house, ripping a scream from my throat. My father shot up from the couch and looked sternly at my mom.

“I will handle this, Abigail,” he said.

I reached out to him. “Papa, don’t go.”

He extended his scarred hand, and I slipped my fingers between his. “It’s okay, kisa.” He bent down to kiss my forehead, his cologne filling my nostrils. He smelled like the woods. “Papa is going to see where the noise is coming from. Stay here with your mother.”

Seconds after he left the room, my mom curled her arm around me. “It’s okay, Katarina. No reason to be scared. The monsters are afraid of Papa.” She laughed, and it sounded like a melody. “He will make them go away.”

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