Page 72 of Teach Me How To Fly

“I—I’m sorry,” I mumbled, regretting now that I’d judged him so harshly.

He was a bad man, maybe even a bad father, but considering his own brother told him that he took advantage of his daughter, he did a pretty good job with protecting me. People reacted differently in certain situations, and Lukyan chose the most extreme way to do it.

“You don’t have to be sorry for anything,moye solntse,“ he whispered, eyeing me and I saw a glistening of tears in his irises.“I have to say sorry to you, for all these years you thought I was the enemy when all I was trying to do was to protect you. Maybe I was wrong to want to keep you locked up here, depriving you of everything you wanted, but I wanted to avoid the situation where you would remember everything.”

“You couldn’t ever avoid this situation,” I whispered, feeling how tears were forming behind my eyes. “I remember everything now, and it’s even harder to accept it.”

“I know, but I can’t change a thing, only to say that I’m sorry and that I would do anything to see you happy.”

I wasn’t prepared to meet this peacemaker side of Lukyan. I didn’t even know he had one in the first place. I looked at him and tried to break through the mask he had, but it was impenetrable. I thought he said those things just to win me over and make me forget what he did, and I was shocked that he was managing to do all that so well.

“Give me freedom. Let me apply to the University I’m dreaming of, let me go out and make friends,” I briefly said and he raised his eyes to glance at me.

His lips parted, and his eyebrows drew together in a serious frown. He rubbed his bearded chin without breaking our eye contact, then he nodded and let his gaze fall somewhere on the ground.

“That’s all you truly want?” he said with a lower tone of voice.

“No,” I added, and I felt my heart starting to beat faster than ever. “I want you to give me a chance to be with Maksen.”

The next moment, all I knew was how he shape-shifted into the man I was always afraid of. He looked at me deeply in my eyes and looked almost ready to rip my head off at any second. That was the moment I truly felt afraid of him. I tried to snuggle into the chair I was sitting on, but there wasn’t any space left for me to hide in.

“I’ll let you apply to the university, Annalise, but under no circumstance will you have Maksen as your lover. That man is cruel,” he burst out, standing up from the chair and towering over me once he started walking in circles in the office.

“Cruel?”

I would’ve used cruel to describe him, not Maksen, but I knew he was trying to use everything he had so he could convince me that his beliefs were the right ones. But if he would’ve described Maksen as cruel, then why would he make Katya marry him?

“He’s a human trafficker and a killer, Anna. Where do you think all his money comes from?”

“Exactly from where your money comes from too, Lukyan.”

I knew he was an assassin, but I didn’t know he was also a human trafficker and this thought sent shivers down my spine. I had to make him talk about that with me. Actually, I had to make him tell me everything about what he was actually doing because I wanted to know whom I would give my love to, even though I wasn’t allowed to do it.

Wait.

Love?

“Katya is marrying him in exactly four months. Get out of the office now.”

The Lukyan that was trying to show me compassion and make me believe how hard it was for him all this time disappeared and was replaced by the Lukyan I knew very well.

I knew I shouldn’t have cared about what he said, but somehow, I hoped that maybe everything he did was just his wrong way of showing me that he loved me. However, things weren’t like this.

Without saying any other word, I stood up from the chair, eyed him for the last time, and left the office.

I felt overwhelmed, but also angry at the entire situation. I came back home hoping to have a normal talk with the one whom I called my father all this time.

While I was walking down the hallway, I tried to figure out why Lukyan was insisting so much on making Katya marry Maksen. I knew she was his real daughter, but there had to be a real reason behind it, and I didn’t know how to find it.

The reason had to be something that would unveil darker truths if he would risk marrying his only daughter to an assassin and human trafficker — I hated that I had to call Maksen that.

Olivia had an affair with your father’s biggest enemy.

The possibility existed that Lukyan’s enemy didn’t know he had a son.

What if marrying his daughter with the son of his enemy was his sweet revenge?

No, I have to stop this.

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