Page 90 of Shattered Altar (Makarova Bratva Duet)

THREE DAYS LATER

I stare at my father’s face.

His eyes are sad, his posture stoic. He gazes down on me with sympathy like I haven’t seen since the day he died.

But there's something lacking from the likeness I’ve scrawled on the wall opposite my bed. I let loose a deep sigh of frustration.

It’s been three days since I was forced into this marriage.

Three days since I last saw my pretend husband.

Three days since I lost my future to the monster who held my family hostage and threatened to kill my brother.

Just three days and three nights, and yet it has felt like a lifetime. I’ve cried until I didn’t have tears to cry. I've teetered on the brink of madness.

The only thing that brought me back from the edge is drawing.

My fingers are pretty much raw, bloody stumps, since I’ve been using my nails to keep the point of my charcoal pen sharp without any other tools available for the job.

The fresh air might have helped stave off my depression. But when I was shoved into this room by an unfeeling Pyotr, I discovered that the balcony door was sealed shut.

I attempted to break the windows, but everything I hurled at them bounced off like they were rubber. I guess unbreakable glass comes standard in the houses of men who make women disappear.

“I’m next, Dad,” I whisper to the sketched picture of my dad. “I’m pretty sure I’m next.”

I wait for him to answer back, but he stares at me with his lifeless eyes and says nothing. I close my eyes and slump back on the mattress.

When the door opens, I don’t even look up. I’m used to the maids and guards moving in and out at will with meals or fresh linens. I leave the trays of food mostly untouched, but I haven’t been able to stop myself eating altogether. Apparently, my willpower is just not strong enough to withstand the bite of hunger.

“Love what you’ve done with the place.”

I open my eyes in alarm to find Yulia standing on the threshold with a tray of food.

“What are you doing here?” I ask bitterly.

She steps in, kicks the door closed behind her, and sets the tray down on the table by the window. Then she surveys the once-blank walls of my room.

I’ve managed to cover the bottom half of the walls with my cartoons and sketches. Some of them make sense. Some of them don’t. Some are accompanied by speech bubbles and coherent narratives, but most of them are just doodles. The manic scratchings of a girl slowly going insane.

“You really are talented,” she remarks.

I laugh. It’s an ugly, broken sound. “What does it matter anymore?”

She sighs and takes a seat at the table. “Care to join me?”

“I’m good.”

“Really, Olivia, I’m not the enemy.”

“Aren’t you?” I scoff. “You’re enabling his behavior. In my book, that makes you complicit.”

She sniffs as if maybe there’s a shred of remorse lurking somewhere in there, but her composure never breaks. She’s immaculately dressed, even now, in cream silk pants and a thin beige wrap sweater.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry. I understand what you must think of me. But I have lived in this world for decades now.”

“And that means you can’t change?”

“He’s my son,” she says again. “What I can do for you is limited.”

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