Page 15 of Deadly Knight

Would they have left us alone, or would they have kidnapped Dimitri regardless? Then what would have happened to him? Was his father’s plan to cause pain in general or only to me? Without those answers, I also can’t picture Dimitri there alone. It might be self-sacrificing, but the idea of him experiencing whatever they would have done to him is almost worse than what I went through. I wouldn’t want that for him, and I know he’d say the same about how it actually panned out—he’d take a beating over me being raped.

Water drips from the corners of my eyes at the same time they flutter open, looking into the fluorescent lights above. I use the brightness to erase the black and white and return to a coloured world. A world in which Mama and Papa both sob, and Mama falls onto my lap, pulling me as close as my IV connections allow for.

“It’s okay,” I murmur, finding it amusing to be consoling them.

Like Mama agrees, her head whips up, the crease between her brows deepening as she stares at me like I’m a stranger. She shakes her head once and cups my cheek, her next statement silent between her own cries.

On my other side, Papa grabs my hand. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t have to.

Neither of them are stating it, but we’re all thinking it—how broken I’ve become. About how wrong my graduation went. About the emptiness existing inside me.

“I’m sorry.”

Both stare. Both shake their heads. Both cry.

“What do you know?”

It’s Papa who answers with a squeeze of my hand. “Everything. None of it was your fault, so don’t say that.”

It was, because I followed Dimitri when I shouldn’t have.

I can’t find the words to explain when exhaustion creeps up again. The image of my family dulls as my body urges me to listen to it and drown out the colour again, to return to the blackness.

“I’m tired.”

Mama stands to reposition my pillow. “Then sleep. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

Before I pass out, their latest conversation flits through my head. I love Dimitri, but I can’t let him see me like this. Not until I process what exactlythisis. He’ll want me to say something, and I wouldn’t know where to begin. He’s already seen me at my worst—in a way I didn’t know possible—inside the warehouse, and I can’t let him see me like this. Confused, dazed. I want to see him when I feel normal again, like the events from earlier didn’t happen. When he can look at me and see the girl he’s been dating, not the one who was violated.

“Only you guys. Please. No one else.”

They share a look. Mama’s eye twitches, but it’s Papa who nods firmly and squeezes my hand again. “Only us. We promise.”

I want to ask how he’s doing; to see what they know. I might be the one in a hospital bed, but he broke as well in that warehouse. I witnessed it for myself, and wonder if he realizes it. Something snapped—changed—within him. The moment BaldOne entered me, he became a shadow of what his father’s been trying to make him into.

A killer.

And no matter what he says or how he acts, the Dimitri who’ll walk through the door is not the guy I’ve been dating.

Just like I’m no longer the girl he fell in love with.

Sleep consumes me before I can ask, and I allow the vision of Dimitri’s love sweep me away.

The waitingroom closest to Katya’s room becomes my new residence for the next…well, I don’t really know how many hours or days have passed since she was admitted. Everything’s a blur amongst the agonizing knowledge she’s only hurt because of me. Because she’s around someonelike me.

With a regular guy, someone who isn’t a mobster, she would have remained at the bonfire drinking, talking to friends, and dancing. Spending the night as she should have experienced.

Instead, she was in the forest because of my deal. She never should have been there. If I knew years ago this was her future, I never would have spoken to her. Never would have gotten close enough to open my heart up.

Running on caffeine and adrenaline, sleep feels so far away, to the point I don’t know when I last did it. At this rate, I might never again; every time I close my eyes, even just to blink, I’m met with an onslaught of memories. Tormenting visions of Katya tied to a mattress, crying, while a faceless figure lowers between her legs and?—

I’ll kill them.

Maybe it’s the lack of sleep or the endless coffee I’ve been sucking back, but my mind whirls in depraved revenge planning. The moment after finally getting to visit Katya, I’ll start hunting. The Volkov name has a lot of pull throughout Russia, and I’ll swallow my pride and go to Papa and Ursin for help if I must. There will be no price too high to ensure retribution is paid.

Steps approach, and I’m prepared for a nurse’s scolding. None of them can decide whether to kick me out or pity me. Instead, a bulkier figure settles into the cheap chair beside me, his low grunt a greeting.

Instantly, my muscles tense. If I were in his place, I wouldn’t hesitate before fucking up the person behind his daughter’s harm. In this case, that’s me. Before he goes off on me, I ask what Ineedto know.