Page 12 of Deadly Knight (The Bratva’s Elite #2)

Two more days pass, and other than the occasional parting of the front blinds when her parents peek outside, there’s no sign of life.

I’m returning after my recent trip home to shower and change clothes when the discomforting sensation of something being wrong rattles my insides.

When I approach her house, the difference becomes obvious. In my few hours’ absence, a new lawn decoration has been added.

A For Sale sign.

Stabbed into the grass by the curb, but could very well be in my heart.

I’ve faced down guns pointed in my face, fought gang members, and murdered those with double my body mass, but for the second time this week, true fear runs through me.

Palms that are suddenly sweaty slide from the steering wheel and onto my lap, and I struggle to get out of the car in my rush to do so.

There must be a reason for the sign. They can’t move.

They wouldn’t. Just months ago, Katya mentioned her parents’ plan to keep the house until their deaths, then it’ll get transferred to her.

They bought it shortly after their marriage and have lived in it ever since.

It’s the place newborn Katya was brought into.

The house with all her childhood firsts.

A place with too many memories for them to uproot themselves.

I stumble to a stop in front of the sign, feeling as though I got punched in the stomach. This means nothing until knowing more. Perhaps they got too good an offer to refuse for the building and opted to buy elsewhere in the city.

It doesn’t quell the anger rising at the sight of the realtor’s face on the sign, though—a middle-aged woman grinning way too widely. It states something’s changing. Something fucking big.

Accompanied by the same dread I felt in the forest on graduation night, when my instincts prickled with the sense there’s more happening, I force myself up the three stone steps to the front door, my fist coming down heavy on the thin door.

My lungs work double time with deep breaths while I remind myself to not kill whoever opens the door.

Seconds pass, and I bounce on my feet. Normally, her parents are quick to answer and tell me to go away, but now, when my insides are knotted so fucking tight I can’t breathe, they decide to take their damn time?

I’m lifting my hand to knock again when a scuffle from the other side comes. The door cracks open, and a flash of brown hair appears. Her mother, which is good. It’s easier to talk with her than Katya’s father.

When the door fully opens, it’s not her mother standing there.

It’s Katya.

For the first time in days, I breathe . I’m alive, brought back from the ashes of that night. While she’s staring at me, I’m devouring every single inch of her. Every little piece I’ve missed over the past few days.

She looks…good. The shadows have lifted from her expression, which remains tight and drawn. Her chocolate-coloured eyes have life in them once more. Not quite normal, but also not the ghost I carried out of the warehouse.

They help rid me of the last memories I’ve been clinging to: when I undid her binds on the mattress, carried her from the building, Polina’s vehicle, and handed her over at the hospital.

They don’t erase the memory of them on top of her. Her tear-streaked eyes finding me across the way, her cries muffled behind the cloth, and the knife the one?—

I break the thought, returning to what matters most in this moment: Katya.

She stares at me, blinking slowly as her mouth curls in the corners.

Her hair is bound up in a messy bun, tendrils looping around her ear and down her neck, some low enough to brush the edge of her oversized shirt.

She shuffles, the breeze catching on what I know to be her favourite lounge pants.

Her feet are bare, chipped pink nail polish poking out from the bottom cuffs.

Peace resonates from her, but with her slow blinks, I’m also reminded of death.

When, in that final moment of one’s life, the soon-to-be-deceased accepts what’s about to happen.

Where their soul is about to go. Who they’re about to meet in the afterlife.

While in agony, they accept moving on, and there’s a sense of peace.

It’s the same peace that causes barbed wire to wrap around my veins—I know Katya, and this isn’t her. She may look physically well, but mentally…she’s blank, staring at me without any indication of any other emotion.

“Katya,” I breathe, my hands landing on the brick framing the door, using the house to keep me upright. Upright, and to prevent from reaching for her. I itch to. More than anything, I want to hold her, feel her in my arms.

As though knowing where my head is, she shuffles back an inch, a flash of panic eviscerating anything good from moments ago. She crosses her arms, her shoulders bowing in, like she’s trying to shield herself from me .

It makes me murderous, even when I try not to allow it to hurt. Makes me want to turn away and go find the four soon-to-be-corpses so they can pay for doing this to her. To us.

“You’re…okay?”

Katya nods and immediately erases half my anxiety.

“What’s going on? You’re moving?” I gesture at the For Sale sign.

My question is seemingly the key to the peace I witnessed when the door opened. The peace that immediately gets locked up and leaves only pain reflecting. Tears shed, destroying me, and her next words are a gasp of pain—both hers and mine.

“I-I’m sorry, Dimitri.”

Inside, I die.

“Moya dusha .” I reach for her again, stopped this time by her palm coming up, rendering me breathless. She’s never turned away from me. And I’ve never pushed. This is a first for us both. I hate it because right now, I need her.

“No,” she whispers, the simple statement sounding so loud for its effect. “I-I can’t.”

“You need time,” I state simply, praying it’s nothing further. Even when I know the truth. Her parents would never sell this house unless?—

Her hand comes up to wipe away her tears, my attention falling to the green ribbon tied around her wrist. At least there’s that still. “Dimitri…we’re moving to Canada.”

“Canada.” Repeating the name is all my brain allows me to do as I think about the country I’ve only heard about and never visited. It’s located on the other side of the world, a whole other continent away. For us, though, it may as well be another planet entirely. “You’re leaving.”

She’s leaving me .

What about us?

Her eyes shut for a solid five, long seconds. I count every single one of them, because if this is truly ending, those are five seconds I’ve now lost to gaze at her beautiful eyes.

When she finally opens them, it’s not Katya across from me. My girl doesn’t look this way—this empty, this accepting.

But it is her. A new version. Because what happened inevitably changed her.

“I love you, Dimitri, with every bit of my heart, my soul, my entire being. The past few years have been amazing. You’re a remarkable person.

A light within the darkness. When you told me about your family, I convinced myself my feelings for you could overshadow anything else.

That it’s a job and nothing more, and won’t change who you are deep down.

I still feel that way…about you . Only you.

Not the rest.” She forces a staggering breath, the pain she’s masking slipping through the cracks.

It mirrors the agony tightening my lungs as she’s reaching her hand into my chest and ripping my heart from its cavity.

How does one survive such a thing? I don’t know. I’d like to figure it out, because I’m not surviving this.

She continues talking—destroying me. Each syllable strips another layer away, leaving me a shell of the man I was. She’s ripped my heart out already, but with her continued words, her nails chip away another chunk, discarding the dead organ between our feet.

“What those men did…what they took …” She shivers, the soft brown of her eyes flickering in the afternoon sun. “While I regret not listening to you at the party, fact is, your father never wanted us together. So if not then, what’s to say it wouldn’t have happened another time?”

She knows.

“It was him. Your papa,” she whispers. “He was…there…with us in the warehouse. You need to know, he was behind it all.”

Yebat’! It keeps getting worse. Knowing my own father did this was one thing, but the fact he was there . He watched her get raped four times over, all at his command. The sick fucker swung the executioner’s ax and stayed to witness his orders followed.

“You know that already.” It’s not a question, prompted by my silence.

My hands tighten by my sides, the desire for my father’s murder growing with every bit she talks. I’ll happily make myself an orphan to rid the world of him.

“Not that he witnessed it, no. When you were in the hospital, I went to him for help and figured it out then. He hired those men, and I’m so fucking sorry for his actions.” Sorry can’t fix the torment he’s spun. “He will pay, I promise.”

“I lied at grad. You asked why your father was there. He offered me money in exchange for breaking up with you, but I couldn’t do that to us.”

Except I think you’re about to. Him attempting to bribe her doesn’t surprise me.

In another scenario, I’d be thrilled she chose me over money, but now I wish we could go back in time and I could ensure she took the payout.

At least her mind, body, and soul would have been spared.

She would have walked away with a padded bank account and a broken heart, but she’d be safe, and it’s preferable to what actually happened.

Her expression pinches. “Knowing the actual depths he’ll go…I ask again. If I went back to the bonfire, would they have found another way to get to me?”

Questions I’ve been asking myself as well, and the answer is probably . Papa isn’t one to let shit go. If she wasn’t by my side, I’m almost certain their orders were to wait for us to be alone. One way or the other, it would have happened.