Page 56 of Chained Fate
And maybe that’s what I was afraid of.
As much as I feared and dreaded Alexei’s obsessive interest in me, a part of me liked it.Reveled in it.Wanted it.
That tiny, twisted part of me was thrilled each time I caught a glimpse of his men watching me as I went about my life.
It was terrifying to know he was out there wanting me, waiting for me.Yet, in some perverse way, it made me feel safe.Like nothing out there could hurt me… except him.
Yeah, I’ll need to dissect that during my next therapy session.Or the next dozen.
Natasha is babbling apologies now, all teary-eyed, so I take pity on her.“Why don’t we have some sushi?”I say gently.“This place I ordered from makes excellent veggie rolls.”
With that, we finally go to the kitchen, where we eat and talk about everything under the sun except for the full, complicated truth about my relationship with Alexei.
I don’t think I’ll ever tell her about that.
Chapter28
Alina
Icontemplate confronting Alexei about Natasha’s revelations, but I decide against it.What would be the point?Bribing my friend into revealing personal but fairly innocuous information is far from the worst thing he’s done.If anything, his goal was to please me, to make me happy and comfortable—which he continues doing in so many big and small ways.
A month into our new life together in Moscow, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.I’m making tremendous progress on my game, my health is improving by leaps and bounds, and it feels like Alexei and I are growing closer together… even though he still hasn’t said those three little words.
I ignore it.Or try to.Instead, I focus on makinghimhappy, or at least distracting him from his grief.Though he doesn’t talk about it, it feels like his father’s death has greatly impacted him.We haven’t been together that long, but I can tell he’s different these days, not fully himself—which makes sense.He’s lost his remaining parent.But I can’t help feeling that there’s something more to it, something he’s not telling me… something he doesn’t want me to know.
Which sucks because we talk a lot otherwise.Over meals and during lazy mornings, in the evenings as we cuddle together in front of the TV and on the forest hikes during which we pick mushrooms—something that’s turned out to be a favorite activity of his as well as mine—we talk about anything and everything, from the latest developments in the Middle East that impact our families’ ventures to the best places to go spelunking, which I’ve learned is one of his hobbies.
I’ve also learned that my husband is exceptionally smart and highly knowledgeable about a variety of topics, as intellectual in his own way as my near-AI-level oldest brother.Though Alexei has never formally studied computer science, his insightful suggestions for my game have helped me get through a few thorny patches, and his ability to quickly synthesize information is second to none.I’ve heard him speak to everyone, from my doctors to the nuclear scientists he employs, on their level, easily sprinkling in terminology that no layman should know.
His capabilities are both impressive and scary, especially coupled with his unapologetic ruthlessness and propensity for violence.
The latter bothers me, I won’t lie.Though I no longer fear that he’ll turn on me the way my father turned on my mother, I haven’t forgotten all the lives he’s taken in his quest to get me, and when I think about it, I feel the sharp bite of guilt and shame that I love the man who did those terrible things.Who’d probably do them all over again if he had to.But I can no longer lie to myself.I do love him.And I’m happy with him.And if that makes me a bad person… well, I am—or was—a Molotov.
Now I’m a Leonov.
Another month passes.Overnight, heavy snow blankets the trees surrounding our mansion and fills the air with the crisp, clean scent of winter.The view out of my bedroom window reminds me of my time at Nikolai’s mountain compound, except we’re less than an hour’s drive from the center of Moscow.
As my health continues to improve, Alexei and I begin to venture out into society, attending fundraisers and galas, meeting friends at restaurants, and going to the opera and ballet.All things I used to do, only now we’re doing them together, and that makes a world of difference.
I no longer look over my shoulder, afraid—but subconsciously hoping—to see his tall, dark figure across the room.Instead, he’s at my side, his hand clasping mine possessively or resting on my lower back.He’s always touching me, always guarding me, always marking me as his.And I don’t mind in the least.The rare times when he does step away from me, I feel uneasy, unsettled.Anxious in some peculiar way.When I told my therapist about it, she said Alexei has become my safety blanket because he helped me through my illness.But I don’t think she’s right.Not entirely, at least.My need for him is bone-deep and visceral—and it was there before my diagnosis, though I misinterpreted it at the time.
I thought the anxiety I’d been dealing with for the past decade was fear ofhimwhen it was something else.An unfulfilled longing, perhaps.A sense of something missing, of a pervasive wrongness in my life.
Even as I did my best to escape from him, some part of me already loved him.Craved him.Needed him.
It’s as if fate had truly tied our lives together, so that one wouldn’t be complete without the other.
I’m pondering that as I absentmindedly pick up my phone to check the news while I wait for Alexei to finish his morning routine in the bathroom and join me for breakfast.As I scroll through the headlines, a notification pops up—a search engine alert I set up a few weeks ago after a graphic nightmare featuring the man I killed in Geneva.
I don’t have such dreams often, thankfully, but the guilt is still with me.
I don’t think it’ll ever fully go away.
The alert is designed to notify me of any new online mentions of the man, Linus Bocelli—a name I wormed out of Konstantin with great effort.Once I had it, I confirmed what Alexei told me: that Bocelli had been accused of rape twice in recent years but was never prosecuted for it, likely due to his family’s connections.
It made me feel better, knowing that my assailant wasn’t just a drunk who’d wandered into the wrong room that night… that I’d potentially saved other women from suffering the fate that I’d almost been subjected to.
It didn’t erase the memory of his blood on my hands, but it helped.
