Page 107 of Crowned

“If you love someone and they love you, you have to cling to each other, protect each other. This world is cruel, and once they’re gone, you’ll never get them back.” She lifts her eyes to mine. “Do you understand?”

I nod slowly. “I’m beginning to.”

Beatrix goes on with her tale, telling us how the rivals took everything that belonged to her lover for themselves, including her. They kept her captive and forced her into sex work.

“There was no end in sight. I thought I was going to die in there.” Her eyes are dark and hollow, and then they brighten. “And then they came. Two men, wearing masks and shouting in another language. It sounded like Russian. They had guns. My captors spoke the same language, and there was so much shouting, but I couldn’t understand a thing. Then the two men started shooting. They were like machines. They killed every man in the place and got all the women out of there.”

Beatrix shudders and takes a mouthful of her tea. The things she must have suffered, the things she must have seen. Unimaginable.

“I thought,here we go again. These two Russian assholes were going to force us into more sex work or something even worse. I couldn’t believe it when they drove us to a women’s shelter and dropped us off.”

I sit back in surprise. Not criminals, but liberators? “Do you know who the men were?”

Beatrix and Olivia exchange glances.

“They were young. Mid-twenties. One was very tall and fair and the other had dark curly hair. I thought I heard the blond one call the dark one Kirill.”

I sit up with a start and slosh tea over my wrist.

Olivia passes me a paper towel. “I know. That’s what I’ve been thinking.”

“Did the tall man have light blue eyes?” I ask Beatrix. “Did they both have tattooed fingers?”

Beatrix nods. “Yes, he did, and yes, I could only see their hands and throats, but they were tattooed. The blond man was very reserved and serious, but oddly reassuring as he got us out of that place. The darker-haired one didn’t say much.”

“When was this?” I ask.

“Six, seven weeks ago.”

Right around the time that Konstantin, Elyah, and Kirill had started being secretive. If they did this, why didn’t they tell me?

More importantly, why did they do this for Olivia and Beatrix? Konstantin was so adamant that he wouldn’t say sorry. The past was dead and done with.

Olivia leans forward. “It was them. Don’t you think so, Lilia? I’m sure it was two of the men who held us prisoner at the pageant. The crazy one and your…” She trails off but I know what she was going to say.

Ex-lover.

Only he’s my very current lover.

“But if it was them, I don’t understand why, nearly a year after the pageant, those two men of all people would find my sister and send her back to me.”

“Maybe…maybe they feel badly about what they did,” I say slowly, trying to figure the answer out for myself. But if that were the case, why not tell me about it? If Konstantin was doing something good at last, I would have expected him to tell me about it.

Olivia gazes at me incredulously. “Those men? Feel bad about what they did? I don’t believe it. Beatrix was probably being held by a rival gang and dropping her at a shelter was the quickest way to get rid of them.”

There’s so much bitterness on her face, and every drop of it is understandable.

“Olivia thinks it was just a coincidence, but I’m not so sure,” Beatrix murmurs. “Maybe they do have a conscience about what they did at the pageant. Maybe you gave them one, Lilia, when you ruined everything.”

Olivia shakes her head. “I don’t want to think about them. I only want to think about my sister being back, and you being here, Lilia. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that we’re all sitting here together.”

I smile at her with genuine feeling. “So am I. It doesn’t feel real.”

“You need to tell us everything that’s happened to you since the pageant.”

My breasts are aching. Viktoria has a bottle of milk, but I need to pump or feed or I’m going to start leaking through my clothes. “Can I come back and see you again soon?”

Olivia’s face falls. “You’re leaving already? I thought you would at least stay for lunch.”

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