Page 68 of Corrupted Guilt

Rifle in hand, loaded, ready.

Then the deck lights came on, lighting up Maxim’s dead, bloody body, his head taped to the sliding door, his body a heap below it.

I screamed and fired the rifle and the sound of breaking glass and gunshots, and the door splintering were all there was as Petya and Vanya fought their way inside.

32. Yuri

I clocked Maxim’s dead body as I ran to Katya, pushing the muzzle of her rifle down as she grabbed me, and I opened fire on Petya and the guy with him. The doors splintered under my fire and despite Katya shaking me, burying her head into my shoulder, I emptied my gun into them both. I pushed Katya gently aside as I took her rifle and emptied the rest of it into Petya and his man, then reloaded my weapon and, holding Katya’s face up to look at me, “Are there any more? Just these two?”

She nodded her head and buried it in my shoulder again. I dropped my gun and held her tightly until her chest stopped racking into mine and her breathing and sobs settled down.

“You’re sure? Just two?” I ask again, still wary it would be that easy.

She nodded silently into my chest.

“Good, it’s done, then.”

“Please,” she said through crying tears and shaking. “Please. Take that away. Maxim. Please.”

“Okay,” I tell her, and she collapses into sobs as Anton and his men sweep the house, arriving on the scene to tell me it was all clear. I tell Anton to clear the bodies with my eyes, lingering on Maxim’s to let him know.

Anton and Maxim were constantly at each other’s throats, vying for my attention but they loved each other the way I loved them. Anton was all solemnity, not allowing anyone to help himas he gathered Maxim’s remains into a black bag and hauled it off the property.

The cleanup crew did the rest as I took Katya into her bedroom and let her cry it all out. All I could do was hold her tightly on her bed as she cried. I normally can’t stand a woman’s tears, but it felt good she was letting it all out and she chose to let me see it. No, it felt like I was an integral part of the crying, like it wouldn’t have happened without me here holding her.

It felt very intimate.

“I think that’s all of it,” she said finally into my chest then peeked her face out. “Petya said he killed Dmitry.”

“You believe him?” I asked.

“I don’t know but I think it’s a choice. I choose to believe him. You can never know anyone completely, fully. All you can do is react to them. Petya was a liar, but that part felt true and that’s my reaction. He drugged Dmitry then showed up to suffocate him. Whatever I did—or you did— wouldn’t have changed anything.Didn’tchange anything. He was dead no matter what either of us did. I believe that now. You should too. This guilt for surviving while he didn’t is useless. It serves no purpose.”

It felt like she stabbed me. How could she get to me like this so easily? I fumbled for words, to stop that feeling, “I might have driven the car or been able to fight Petya off, stop him from suffocating Dmitry, I—”

“Could have died too in the crash or been drugged and killed by Petya. You weren’t responsible and there’s nothing you could have done to change things. If not that night, Petya would have got him another night.”

“That’s a lot to lay on me at once,” I told her, honestly.

“It’s unfair, I know. I’m learning from you,” she said, I could hear the smile in her voice.

She held onto my belt, a comforting, lovely feeling. I was going to miss this, how she clung to me whenever possible, reaching out for me unconsciously. She had come a long way from the child crying in the dark, but she still had these tender child-like tendencies that awoke something very tender in me.

Out of nowhere, the tears came again, she burst into sobs, her shoulders shaking.

It was raw and violent, racking her body to come out. Why couldn’t she cry gently? Little sniffles that I could comfort with a hug and soft words? Instead she was naked and vulnerable and sobbing violently into me so that I held her against me until they passed. With everything she’d been through, there was nothing I could do but hold her head to my chest and whisper to her that everything was going to be all right.

“No, it won’t!” She cried. Angry now.

I looked down at her, at the clenched fist coming up to my chest and my nose. She was beautiful, magnificent even. Her hair a wild tangle around her neck and shoulders, her face red with anger. Weak. Strong. Vulnerable. Courageous. Completely maddening and so damned desirable I could barely restrain myself.

I held her to me so tightly that she gasped, as she struggled against me, beating her fist at my back, crying now to let her go.

“No,” I whispered and turned her face up to my lips as I ground my mouth down on hers. I could feel her breasts flatten against my chest, reminding me how good it was when we weren’t fighting. I kissed her again, roughly, and cupped her breast in my palm, rubbing my thumb over the pebbled nipple.

Katya softened against me and began to kiss me back, her arms sliding around my neck as I grabbed her ass with my free hand, lifting her hips into alignment with mine. I carried herto the bathroom and set her down as I turned on the shower and undressed her slowly. We both needed to clean all that happened off us, all the bullshit we had been putting each other through as well as the bullshit the outside world had put on us.

Our wet, naked bodies created a lovely friction against each other, warming us, tightening that string of desire between us that never broke, not for a moment.

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