Page 90 of Unwillingly Yours

I turned back to the dark water before me, wishing that Boris hadn’t smashed the bottle that now lay in a million glittering pieces. I closed my eyes and let the nightmares of the past overwhelm me in horrifying detail.

This is the only way,I lied to myself.

Epilogue

The Bogatyr

I pulled absentmindedly at the cuffs of my long-sleeved blouse, watching as the rain slipped down the car window. It was sometime after midnight, and the club Blindfold was packed. Each time the door swung open, loud bass pulsated out of the building. A laughing crowd waited outside for their turn to enter. The bouncers looked tired as they let in yet another stream of scantily clad girls.

My finger brushed the scars of the cigarette burns in the palm of my hand and I sighed. Once upon a time, I would’ve been there with them. And even now, I still longed to be there with them—so pretty and beautiful and unmarred.

But someone had taken those things from me. And no amount of longing would ever bring those back.

I looked up at my reflection in the car’s vanity mirror and recoiled at the familiar hideous visage—scarred and ruined—that had stared back at me for ten years. A familiar hatred welled up inside of me.

“Fuck you, Aleksey…” I whispered. “Fuck you.”

I had wanted to kill myself that night as I lay there on the ground, desperately trying to convince myself that the worst thing imaginable hadn’t just happened. I closed my eyes, and a single tear rolled down my scarred and broken cheek. I could still hear the laughs of his father’s men. I could still feel the cuts and burns across my body. The searing pain between my legs.

But nothing hurt more than when Aleksey pressed that roll of bills into my hand and thanked me for being a good whore. Just as his father ordered him to do. Like a beaten dog.

And in that moment, I filled myself with a new resolve—a new, undying hatred. This hatred kept me alive, even after I learned that I could never have a child because of the ordeal I went through.

I vowed that I would destroy him. His family. And everything he held dear.

A few messages carved into the corpses of Korolev men that I catfished and fake threats that an arms dealer my father used to run guns for was muscling into Chicago were all that it took. Fyodor Korolev was practically champing at the bit to send his only son to New York in order to forestall a threat that never existed in the first place.

And where Aleksey went, I followed.

Ten years, I thought bitterly. Ten years, I watched him from the shadows. Ten years, I hoped that he might think of me.

And for ten years, I watched him fuck his way through New York, leaving a trail of one-night stands behind him. Each one of them beautiful like I used to be.

Did he ever give a fuck about me? Did he even care?

The death of Fyodor was the result of my own decade-long plans finally coming to fruition. The dirty bastard frequently sought out pretty young girls whenever his wife was busy fucking other men.

A single capsule of ricin, a bribe to the bartender at the right time, and Fyodor died in his bed.

The world was none the wiser, yet his death had done nothing to sate my cravings for vengeance.

As for Ludovico, the death of his son, Luca, had made him foolish. He was willing to ally with anyone and do anything if it meant that he could hurt the Korolevs.

When my envoy told him to hand over his daughter to the man who murdered his son, he had done so without hesitation. He was a bastard, just like Fyodor. All of these monsters were the same.

Me? I was the biggest monster of them all, because I made themfear.

“Madam, they’re here.” My envoy’s voice sounded beside me.

I opened my eyes and stared ahead. Another car had pulled up. I recognized Mikhail Korolev in the driver’s seat. But it was the familiar face of the man next to him that made my heart skip a beat.

Boris.

He had also been there that night Fyodor’s men destroyed me. He had been forced to watch with Aleksey. To share his guilt.

He was always Aleksey’s shadow, and for a brief, terrifying moment, I thought Aleksey might be here too. For a moment, I dared to imagine that Aleksey might recognize me and hold me in his arms, begging me for forgiveness.

The past is dead, Svetlana.I clenched my fist, digging my nails into my palm.

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