Page 15 of Silenced

But fuck if she isn’t the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Surrounded by disgusting cotton sheets that aren’t worthy of her and unconscious, she’s better than any of my mistresses.

Mine.

The word rumbles through me again and I know it’sthatthat’s confusing Dmitri.

I don’t lay claim to anyone or anything.

Ever.

But I’ve claimed her.

I’ve covered her in soiled sheets so my men can’t see her lack of clothing, and Dmitri is lucky that I love him like a son or I’d have gouged out his eyes for looking upon her nudity how he did.

These feelings are overwhelming.

Alien.

I don’t feel. Period.

I stopped wasting energy on emotions a long time ago.

But I’m feeling now.

And it’s… crazed.

Chaotic.

With them roaring through my veins as much as the blaze I started in Miami earlier, I turn to Dmitri and sign, “Make sure Klara and Beatriz vacate their apartments by the end of the month.”

Dmitri’s brows lift again. But before he can shove his foot in his mouth, he closes it, stares at mysolnyshko—correctly guessing why I made the request—then shakes his head as he retrieves his cell phone to evict my mistresses.

As he enacts my order, I study Cassiopeia.

Even her name is of the sky...

But she doesn’t belong to the heavens.

She belongs to me.

Mine.

She isn’t ready for what she’s stirred to life by simply existing.

Neither, I fear, am I.

5

NIKOLAI

I Feel Like I’m Drowning - Two Feet

* * *

“How canI treat her if I can’t uncover her, Dmitri?”

I hear our official doctor’s hissed complaint from outside the ambulance and listen to my son’s response: “You do what you can. Just don’t get him mad, Grigoriy. The repercussions aren’t worth it. I’m telling you he’s not in his right mind where she’s concerned.”

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