Page 2 of Corrupted Guilt

You’ll have to do it yourself.

I’ll fight then. Fight for myself tooth and nail.

I look down at the ground but hope there’s another way – a less terrifying way.

I look around my room and survey everything carefully.

Walking out the door won’t work. For one, my father’s office is across the hall and that’s where I left him after he slapped me. Even if I got by him, there were half a dozen men protecting him, whose job it was to keep the place locked down. Once I was outside the house, I’d only need to worry about the security cameras, not the men. And what did I care if cameras caught me leaving?

The bathroom window is way too small for my hips to wiggle through.

Nope, it’s the big window or nothing. The fresh spring air does smell nice – like freedom, I hope.

Still, I’ve never done this and it’s a long way down to the ground below.

This needs some thinking over, some time to build up my courage. I close my eyes and try to visualize success.

“Don’t jump,” a voice from behind mocks me.

I have no need to turn my head and see him, I know that voice. I can see him easily enough in my mind. He’s been inmy dreams—and nightmares— for the past four years: Yuri, my father’s right-hand man.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” I tell him. It’s byaccidentthat I’m worried about.

“Hoping to be rescued like a princess locked in the tower?” He asks, a smile in his voice.

“Fairy tales aren’t real. And you’re not Prince Charming.”

“That’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said, Kat,” He comes over, puts a hand on my folded calf and leans over me to look at the ground below.

I finger my Russian Cross gold necklace that I always wear—a gift from Yuri from before he blamed me for Dmitry’s death.

?

“Thinking of escaping out the window, then?” He purses his full lips together, to whistle, then relaxes them into a grin, looking at me, “Would take some balls. This fall would only shatter your legs, not kill you but you just want the attention? A shame to hurt these legs either way.” His hand creeps along my calf and up my thigh.

“Maybe I’m thinking about using this knife,” I pull the knife from the Russian Cross, the bottom is the knife handle and hold it near Yuri’s neck as a warning, but he doesn’t even flinch.

“If you held that blade to my balls, then maybe you’d have some leverage. Put it away before you hurt yourself, we both know you won’t use it.”

I do as he says and put it away because he’s right. I won’t use it. Violence isn’t my thing.

I turn away from him and back to the window. “It’s freedom I want not attention. I’ve been waiting a year. I workedmy ass off, bided my time, sacrificed. And now he changes his mind,” I say. “It’s not fair.”

“Wake up, princess,” he growls. “This is the Bratva. It’s not supposed to be fair. No one gets what they deserve. Did Dmitry get what he deserved? Was that fair? We only get what we fight for, and even then, only if we’re lucky. If you didn’t think Viktor might change his mind, might even sell you off, then you’re a fool.”

A silly little fool. “You don’t understand,” I say, really trying hard not to sound like the whiny adolescent attention-whore he thinks I am.

“I understand one year. One year is nothing. My plans, three years in the making, are spoiled with you here,” he said acidly.

“What plans?”

“None of your business. My point, princess, is that nothing takes me by surprise. Nothing shocks me. I adapt to every changed circumstance. I walked into this myself; it was up to me to walk back out again myself. I understand that, and I don’t worry about it.” He turned to me, again, “What will you do? I doubt he’ll ever let you go.”

I don’t have an answer, deep down I understood all this too, but refused to let it come to the surface.

“And you still made that deal and kept up your end. And it got you nowhere. Do you know why?”

No, and I really don’t want to hear it from you. “Why?” I ask despite my better judgment.

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