Page 126 of Devil's Vows

I treasure you.

Ivan

The card is dated for our wedding day, and it’s the perfect, most thoughtful gift. He knew I’m not one for diamonds like he had in the box with Darya’s things. But this…it’s what I’ve always wanted.

Stupid man, breaking my heart twice in one morning.Treasuring mewhen all I want is to be loved, because I love him already. I love his daughters…this whole broken family that will only be healed through love.

The girls’ voices sound from outside, and they’re headed straight for the door by the conservatory. I wipe at my cheeks in a rush, not ready to face questions. When they skip in withhands full of bright fall leaves, Yuri following at a slower pace, I smile.

“What wonderful art projects we’re going to make with those, girls! I have so many plans.”

And one of them is to make my husband fall in love with me, because I won’t leave Irisha and Katya, or any children born from this marriage, even if Ivan wants me out. Not until they’re old enough to look out for themselves, even if it means I never get to leave this compound again. It’s better than any convent, and one day, hopefully, once all the bullet holes have been dealt with, we can get in a cleaning crew to keep the massive house in better shape.

For now, we can live small. It’s how I prefer it in any case.

65

GABI

With this new resolve, I tackle the day with ease and find that joy slips in with every small moment I share with the girls. There’s so much to love here, to protect. These girls are my treasure and dragons be us all, and let us all be dragons for each other.

It’s dinner time when Ivan comes out of his office again. I don’t know if he spent the whole day in there, but he quickly sets the rhythm for our days.

Every evening, I ask for news on Chiara. Every evening, his answer is the same: be patient.

She seems to have disappeared off the face of the Earth, and I should think this is a good sign?

“Given their track record,moya ptichka, they like leaving a body. So far, there’s been no body, so…”

It eats at me, but there is nothing more to do but trust that between Ivan and Dominic, something will come up. I hate that I’m left out, as always, and I have no clue what to do to change this, to become one of them. What with Ivan’s obsessive need to protect me, I’m told everything on a need-to-know basis, as if I haven’t already been through worse.

My days might circle around the girls and their needs, Ivan’s around his work, but at night, we share a bed where he makes love to me. At least, it feels like love to me, but in my head and heart, that first time’s comment hums in the background: two sons, two sons…Two sons. And then I’ll cut you free.

When my period arrives for real in full force, he makes his escape to the harbor office, and I don’t see him for days, only getting curt answers to my consistent enquiries about Chiara. It hurts. Nights are lonely, and once the girls are in bed, without authorization or even caring to have it, I visit the old Pakhan.

He is irresponsive, but I hold his frail hand and run my thumb over the tattoos on his knuckles. Unlike the first time I saw them, when they took me by surprise and bulldozed me with a landslide of awful memories, I now have time to study them. The ink has faded and seems smudged with age, and I don’t know the symbolism of any of these shapes: there’s barbed wire around one knuckle, letters that make no sense to me, and a cross on one hand.

He is slipping away, and when the nurse saysany day now, I cry. Maybe Ivan isn’t avoiding me—he is avoidingthis.

And then the night comes when I wake up, sensing something’s off. It’s two in the morning, but I can’t shake my unease. I pull on my robe, and when I step outside into the corridor, I startle. The gate is flung open, and Ivan is leaning against the wall looking haunted, hands cupped to his mouth, eyes bloodshot with exhaustion.

Yuri is by his side, his cold blue eye for once wet with tears. “I’ll leave, Pakhan. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“He’s gone,” he whispers to me as Yuri’s footsteps retreat to the stairs. “And thank God. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

I step up and gather him to me. “You loved him. How blessed you were.”

“He was a hardened man,moya ptichka, but he loved us. LeftRussia for us, built a whole life for us to secure our future…and now, the worst thing is, I can’t even give him a proper funeral.”

“Why not?”

“I need him ‘alive’ for a few more weeks, until we’ve sorted out this thing with your Russian, with Chiara?—”

“What?” I blink in confusion. He’s told me nothing. “What’s going on? What do you mean?”

“I didn’t want you to stress about it. I know you already do, and I had to do something. I’ve been working with your brothers to bring over the woman I suspect did your piercing. She might know who the Russian was. She might know where Chiara is, because we can’t track her down at all. We have our suspicions, but until we have them confirmed?—”

My chest tightens. “You’re bringing her here?”