Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 66833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
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 of him when 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.
In any case, I don’t know why I set up the alert. It was a whim. I wasn’t actually expecting anything to pop up after Valery’s crew cleaned up the scene. I think it was just a way for me to have a sense of closure, a certainty that the bodies were staying buried—literally, in this case.