Page 105 of Ruthless Rustanovs

She looked out the window again. Still no dark cars. No goons in suits. No Bair Rustanov. She was safe here in Sembach, she assured herself. She was.

But she couldn’t relax. The Carmina Burana finale was chewing up the inside of her chest, and the heavy wedding ring he’d given her felt like it was burning a hole in the pocket of her Marc Jacobs dress.

She still didn’t know why he’d done it. Called her into his office a few weeks ago, just a couple of days after the worst visit yet from the brother she’d come to privately refer to as “Alexei the Awful.” But nonetheless, she’d found him there with two men, and the papers all drawn up.

One of the men who announced himself as a lawyer presented the papers and told her where to sign.

The other turned out to be a judge. Which was how she came to find out that this was a marriage ceremony.

“We will get married now, so there is no misunderstanding,” was the only explanation The Beast gave her.

The wedding had been conducted like a business meeting with not even a kiss exchanged at the end.

Of course no kiss. He never kissed her unless she kissed him first, and she’d been too stunned to initiate one even if she wanted to.

Their wedding was the first time “O Fortuna,” Carmina Burana’s opening and closing song, had popped off like a flare gun’s warning shot inside her chest.

Just words, she’d told herself even as the beginning lines of Germany’s most famous cantata began its slow rise. Just words, she told herself. Not the real her. She’d never given him any piece of her real self or let that broken Virginia girl make him any promises—

A door slammed on the floor below and her body seized, her eyes flying back to the hallway window. But the street was clear.

No dark cars. No hulking men. No sign of him anywhere. Still her stomach remained tight as she listened to the sound of approaching footsteps coming up the stairs.

But then she saw the most beautiful thing on earth. Willa, the younger sister she hadn’t seen in years. Dark and tall as Nefertiti, her mouth dropped open in shock when she found her long lost sister standing in front of the apartment door.

“You got a package,” she told her sister, the med student, not knowing what else to say.

“Thel?” Willa blinked rapidly.

And Thelxiope—or Thel as she used to be called (because who could pronounce that crazy name?)—knew Willa was still trying to process the presence of the sister who hadn’t so much as emailed her in the last five years.

The Thel she’d known had been a much different girl.

A sharp-tongued cheerleader who’d barely managed to stay on the squad, because she was constantly catching suspensions for getting in fights.

The Thel she’d known had run away from home dressed in shorts and a tank top.

No doubt Willa hadn’t been expecting for the trashy sister, who used to save up money for push-up bras, to show up at her door five years later in a Marc Jacobs dress.

The C- sister Willa had known, hadn’t even known how to spell Marc Jacobs.

As it was it took a few times working her mouth before the girl who used to be Thel could answer, “Yeah, it’s me, Willa. Though nobody’s called me Thel in years.”

Her little sister gave her a knowing smile. “So I guess you changed your name.” Thel had always said she would as soon as she turned eighteen.

“Yeah, yeah I did,” Thel admitted with a tremulous smile of her own. “But I’m ready to change it back now.”

“Why?” Willa asked, voice curious and frank.

“Because I’m sick,” Thel answered, not knowing how else to explain what took place in the doctor’s office that day.

How instead of getting her tubes tied like she was supposed to at Bair’s command, she’d asked the university hospital’s OB/Gyn in broken German about the lump she’d felt in the shower.

Even after five years, she still hadn’t managed to pick up this country’s language as well as Bair.

She could still remember the doctor’s cold hands as she checked Thel’s small breasts herself.

The feeling of certain dread even before the doctor switched to English to tell her this was something they would definitely need to have checked out before they went through with the “other” procedure.

And the wind tunnel that had appeared inside her head as she nodded and asked if there was another door she could leave out of.

Already knowing without needing any test results what was happening inside her body.

But in Sembach, she told her sister the simplest version of her truth: “I got cancer, really bad. And I’m ready to be done pretending to be somebody I ain’t.”

“Okay,” Willa said. Just like that. “What can I do to help?”

And Thel broke down sobbing.

“I ain’t used to being nurtured no more,” she tearfully explained as her much taller little sister held her. “Or having somebody say they’ll help me without a devil’s deal being involved.”

“I’m not ‘somebody.’ I’m your sister, Thel,” Willa admonished, holding her even tighter. “And whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. I promise.”

Thel believed her. And moreover, she was grateful.

For the first time in a very long time, she was grateful to be Thelxiope Okeanos.

The strangely-named girl with the crazy family who loved her.

After Bair Rustanov, after this terrible pre-diagnosis, which made it immediately clear she had to get out of this fucked up version of a life she shared with The Beast, she knew she wouldn’t ever take her remaining family for granted again.

But even as she cried with gratitude in her sister’s arms, she knew this wasn’t the end. Knew she wouldn’t get away from The Russian Beast that easily. She’d escaped for now. But even back then, safe inside her sister’s arms, she knew she’d never truly be free.