Page 60 of Savage Beauty

I join him on the floor and fix him with a stare. “Sasha. Tell me what the fuck is going on. You sent me away, and now you’re chasing me through JFK as though your life depends on it. What gives?”

“You’re carrying my child.” He looks at me, his expression softening. “Ourchild. There are people out there who will want to hurt you if they ever find that out. So I came here to tell you torun. Run as far as you can from me and my entire family and forget you knew us. Change your name, your identity, everything. Then you’ll be safe, just like you always wanted.”

I swallow down the rising panic. I’d already figured all that out; that’s why I was leaving alone. But I thought it was Sasha who’d be after me. Who is he so afraid of?

“Something is going on here that you’re trying to hide,” I say. Sasha reaches for my hand, but I swat it away. “You owe me better than this. I have a ticket for another flight, and it’s boarding in ten minutes. I’ll just go; isn’t that what you want anyway?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Sasha gets to his feet and helps me to mine. I pull my hand away quickly but see the lie in his eyes. He doesn’t want me to go, but he doesn’t want me to stay either.

“You don’t think I deserve to know the truth?” I ask. “You destroyed the life I was building and made me part of yours without giving me any choice at all. You pretended to love me, all because I dared to leave the city and get engaged to some other guy before you got what you wanted. You let me open up to you about my past while withholding the crucial information that you were a drug-pushing son of a bitch.”

I can’t hold back the sneer on my face, but I feel a tear on my cheek. “Now, after all the pain you’ve caused me, you want me to just turn away and leave with no explanation? There’s no getting away from it, Sasha. You’re a bad person.”

“I know.”

We’re eye-to-eye, neither wanting to be the first to look away. Then something breaks in him, and he speaks.

“I can’t bear to let you go without telling you the truth,” he says, his voice cracking. “But you have to promise me you’ll leave and stay gone. I’ll have the marriage annulled, and that will be that. Agreed?”

“The way I feel now?” I fold my arms. “Fine.

* * *

My coffee goes cold as Sasha tells me it all. Larry Webster’s death, Tosca’s murder, and Igor’s betrayal. I grow more and more still as the weight of the danger settles on me like a heavy blanket.

“Igor defended me when Oleg was nasty,” I say. “He was kind to you, too. How can a man be so duplicitous?” I slap my forehead with my palm. “Oh, wait. He’s alawyer.”

“Yeah.” Sasha slumps back in his chair. “So now you know. Igor killed Tosca and will stop at nothing to kill you, too, once he knows you’re pregnant. So you have to get away.”

“You can’t let this happen.” I kick him in the shin, and he glares at me. “Tell Vlad, and he’ll—”

“Die,” Sacha interrupts, finishing my sentence. “Weallwill. You don’t understand. Igor is all in with this vendetta of his. He can’t back down now; if the rest of thekomissiyaknew what he’d done, he wouldn’t only be disgraced. He’d disappear off the face of the Earth. Vlad can’t move fast enough, and what would he do anyway? Only Tosca knew what was going on, and he’s dead. Igor was smart enough not to spring his trap until he knew everything was in place.”

My flight will depart in just a couple of minutes. Sure enough, a voice on the Tannoy says my name.Last call for Josephine Bartlett.The name on my passport is the old me before my world changed forever.

“Okay,” I say. “What aboutme? What was true and what was bullshit, Sasha? Because I’m gonna have to decide what to tell our child, and unlike you, I’m not a natural liar.”

He draws a deep breath. “Zolotse, I had to do it. Igor told me to keep you with me, but there was no way I could do that. So I said whatever was necessary to make you hate me enough to leave.”

I frown. “So you weaponized my insecurities—things you only knew about because I thought I could trust you? Great. And what about the other stuff? Vlad told me you were your father’s little lieutenant, running all the vice and sick shit the Kislevs used to be into.”

He nods. “That’s all true. It’s not the person I am now, and I thought I could get away with keeping my past a secret. I didn’t want you to look at me like you’re doing now.”

“Why should I believe you?” I stand and pick up my backpack. “You want to be better than where you came from? I get that. But I never hid anything from you.”

I want to turn my back on him forever. To get on the plane and start again, with continents between me and the man who stomped on my heart. But I’m partly to blame. I knew what he was capable of and ignored the red flags because, deep down, I’m a dreamer. I wanted to believe Sasha was a better man than his actions suggested, but like my mother before me, I was wrong.

I promised Sasha I’d go, and he’s not trying to stop me now. He lifts his head to look at me, and his face is a mask of pain.

“Goodbye, my Josie,” he says quietly. “I love you. Whether or not you believe it makes no difference to how I feel. I’ll live out my punishment and take some comfort from knowing I can’t hurt you anymore.”

My feet are frozen, as though my shoes are glued to the floor. I can’t tear my eyes away from Sasha; suddenly, I understand.

I swore to stand by his side. He promised to love and protect me. Sure, the first wedding was a sham, but I said my vows with a different perspective the second time.

Sasha isn’t willing to fight because he has nothing to fight for without me. His family will be safe in their exile. And he believes he deserves this. He thinks he’s wrought enough pain in his lifetime to have earned this appalling payback. Now he’s suffering, bowing under the weight of the terrible sacrifice he’s had to make.

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