I walked into the lounge room a few days after capturing Talon, unable to keep the smile off my face.
It was over. Finally, it was over. I’d caught the bastard responsible for tormenting me for months and almost killing all of my children, and he was locked in The Pit, available for me to torture anytime I damn well felt like it.
Revenge never felt so fucking good.
“Uh-oh, I recognise that smile,” Lukyan joked. He was sitting in one of the armchairs beside the couch—more like lounging, actually, because he wasn’t sitting in it the way it had been designed for. He had his back resting against one of the armrests while his legs dangled over the other.
Aleksandr was spread out on the couch, one foot resting comfortably on the coffee table in front of him, half watching whatever show was on the television.
“This?” I pointed to my face, a thousand-watt smile spreading out across my lips. “This is—”
“Your torture smile, I know. I’ve seen it many-a-times,” Lukyan chuckled. “I take it you went to visit Talon again?”
“I did.”
“And?” Aleksandr questioned, his gaze still locked firmly on the TV.
“And we had a lovely time.”
Lukyan laughed. “I bet Talon doesn’t think so.”
I merely shrugged, unable to wipe the smile from my face.
Lukyan’s gaze swung to his big brother. “Hey, you think I could have a crack at him? There’s this new torture technique I’ve been dying to try.”
“He’s Father’s prisoner,” Aleksandr grunted. “Ask him.”
“I don’t mind.” I leant my shoulder up against the door jam, crossing my arms over my chest. “Just don’t break him. If he starts to pass out, stop and call the doc. I don’t want him dying any time soon.”
“Yes!” Lukyan jumped up, full of excitement. He saluted us both and went to leave when the phone on the wall started to ring.
It wasn’t a normal phone. It was only capable of receiving calls from the guardhouse at the front of the property. Whenever it went off, it usually meant the soldiers manning the gate needed something.
“Answer the phone,” Aleksandr ordered.
Lukyan blew out an irritated huff, but did as he was told. “Yello?” He frowned slightly before this shit-eating grin broke out over his face. “Entry granted. Let her up.”
Anddddd, that’s my que to leave. It was most likely some woman Lukyan was seeing, and I wasn’t in the mood for the fake pleasantries, especially since I had a woman of my own who I couldn’t get off my fucking mind.
A woman I was avoiding.
Since walking out on Autumn at the DK4 Stronghold, I’d been unable to bring myself to message her. Or even think about her.
The guilt over the past few days had been getting progressively worse, and I wasn’t sure why. At first, it had been manageable, like a small hum in the background that I could ignore most of the time. But something had happened to change that, and it was like a constant ache in my heart. A constant, unbearable pressure smothering my chest. Guilt was eating me alive from the inside out, and I didn’t know why.
Was it the sex?
No. The guilt had started a day or so after the last time we slept together.
So, what was it, then?
I had no idea, and it was driving me insane.
I pushed off the doorframe. “I’m going to my office.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Father.” The smirk on Lukyan’s face made me narrow my eyes suspiciously. He moved to the window that faced out to the front of the house and pulled the curtain back. He turned back to look at me, eyes sparkling. “Your girlfriend’s here,” he sang mockingly.
My whole body stiffened like an electric shock just hit me at full force.
Girlfriend?
The world started to fade away slowly, everything around me disappearing as I fell into a deep, dark pit full of sorrow and despair. Aleksandr barked something at Lukyan, but I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear anything at all.
Girlfriend?
My eyes landed on a photo of Yekaterina and I hanging on the wall, and guilt exploded in my chest so violently that I couldn’t breathe. I clutched my sternum, trying desperately to get a handle on myself, but it was impossible. Grief crushed me.
Everything hit me all at once. Everything I’d done over the past few months, all the impure thoughts, feelings and actions I’d committed with Autumn, catapulting me into an ocean of guilt I couldn’t get out of.
Sadness tore at my insides. I’d stood over Yekaterina’s grave and promised her that she would have my heart, forever and always. That no one would ever replace her, and what had I done?
I’d had sex with another woman.
I’d betrayed my wife, the sanctity of our marriage and everything our vows stood for. It was like I was drowning, unable to get my head above water. It muddled everything else within me until all I could feel was guilt and shame.
It was overwhelming.
And then came the anger.
Anger at myself. At Autumn. At everyone.
A dark cloud of fury washed over me, settling deep into my bones. The world snapped back into focus. My eyes locked on the door, hands clenching into tight fists at my side.
Girlfriend?
How could I have let this happen? How could I have let myself do this? Girlfriend? GIRLFRIEND? I had a goddamn wife!
The fury consumed me, right down to my fingertips and toes and I marched towards the door.
Aleksandr stepped into my path, his palms out. “Father, Lukyan was just kidding—”
“I was.” Lukyan nodded earnestly, panic in his eyes as he came up to his brother’s side. “I was just playing around—”
“Get. Out. Of. My. Way,” I demanded, voice cold and hard.
Aleksandr didn’t move. “Father, please. Don’t—”
I shoved him out of my path and slammed both of my hands onto the double doors, flinging them open.
Autumn stood at the foot of the porch steps, the smile dropping from her lips the moment she saw me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I snarled, the anger and guilt pumping through my veins making it impossible for me to calm down.
She took a step back in shock, eyes widening slightly at my outburst.
Yekaterina’s ghostly image appeared, swirling into view right beside Autumn. Desperation shone in her eyes. “Don’t do this, Dima,” she begged. Pleaded.
Uncertainty flashed across Autumn’s face. “I—”
“You think because we fucked a few times, that gives you the right to just show up at my house unannounced like this? In the middle of the day? In front of my children?” I hissed.
Her gaze flicked to Aleksandr and Lukyan behind me. “I-uh.” She shook her head as if trying to wake up from a daze. “I don’t, um, understand—”
No. Why would she? Why would she understand? She couldn’t possibly.
“No, you don’t,” I spat, leering at her. “You don’t understand. So, let me spell it out for you.” I stepped out onto the porch. Autumn retreated another step. “We’re not together. We’re not boyfriend and girlfriend. We’re not going to ride off into the sunset together and live happily ever after. We’re nothing. You hear me? Nothing.”
Autumn sucked in a harsh breath, pain flaring in her beautiful green eyes.
“Dima, please,” Yekaterina implored, voice laced with sadness and worry. “You don’t want to do this. Not really.”
I ground my teeth together. Ignore her. She’s just a figment of your imagination.
“Yes! I am! Your imagination! Yours! And I’m telling you right now, this isn’t what you want.”
Autumn licked her lips, her gaze moving between my son’s and I. “Has something happened?” she asked, voice soft, almost calming, like she was trying desperately to understand what was going on.
More anger and frustration exploded in my body. I shook my head, exasperated. “You just don’t get it, do you? How stupid are you?”
She winced as if I’d struck her.
“Father!” Aleksandr chastised.
“Tikhiy!” Quiet! I yelled at him, and he snapped his mouth shut, his jaw clenching.
Yekaterina stepped closer to me, the look on her face begging me to see reason. “Don’t ruin your chance at happiness, Dima. Don’t do this. Please. I’m begging you.”
I ignored her and embraced the guilt smothering me. That horrible feeling swam inside me, drowning me. I let it fill me because I deserved it. I deserved to feel it, no matter how much it hurt.
A coldness settled over me. “Everything that happened between us was a mistake. A big, fat, giant fucking mistake that I regret more than anything else in my life.”
“Stop! Stop now!” Yekaterina pleaded.
I won’t. I can’t.
“My heart does, and always will belong to Yekaterina. My wife. Not some random woman who doesn’t even know what it means to love someone.”
Autumn stared at me, what looked like tears welling in her eyes. Yekaterina’s shoulder’s dropped, her head hanging forward. Then she disappeared, her image swirling away as fast as it had arrived.
A different kind of guilt started worming its way into my heart at the sight of Autumn. That look of hurt in her eyes. The light she’d had when I’d first met her was…gone. Bit by bit, she seemed to shut down in front of me, and I hated it. I hated that I was the cause of it.
I hated myself.
“I see,” she said, voice devoid of emotion. She cleared her throat and stood taller. “I guess we have nothing else to talk about, then.” She went to walk away and then hesitated. “Oh, by the way, I didn’t come here for some midday booty call. I came here to tell you that the man who hired me to kill Dominik made a mistake. Dominik was never the intended target. You were.”
What?
She flicked the folder in her hands and it landed at my feet. The wind blew a page open, and I looked down to see a picture of me.
“That man’s name was Sergei Volkov,” she finished.
My father hired her to kill me?
And instead of doing it, she’d told me. Warned me.
My eyes moved back to her, but she was already walking back down the driveway. Every part of me screamed to go after her. To apologise. To explain the guilt consuming me made me say all of those horrible things, but I couldn’t move. I just stared after her, one hundred percent sure that my heart was leaving with her.
Lukyan shuffled his feet behind me. “Father, I—”
My brain exploded with fury. I spun so quickly that he gasped as I shoved him up against the wall with a forearm at his throat. “This is all your fault,” I snarled in his face.
Lukyan choked, eyes wide open with fear. He struggled against me, but I kept him pinned. “I-I—”
“Why do you have to say every stupid thing that pops into your fucking head?” I sneered, applying more pressure.
He wheezed, scratching at my arm and kicking his feet. The fear in his eyes, I’d never seen it before—not from any of my children, and it made me feel worse. It was true fear. As if he was afraid I was going to kill him. My stomach churned at the sight. It all piled onto the horrible emotions already taking over me, and yet, I couldn’t stop.
“Why couldn’t you for once—just for once—keep your goddamn mouth shut? Why? Why?!” I roared, shaking him.
“Father. Enough,” Aleksandr demanded.
I didn’t listen. I kept shaking him and shaking him, over and over again. “Why, Lukyan?! Why?! Why?!—”
“I said enough!” A hard body rammed into me from the side, and then all of a sudden, it was me being held up against the wall, Aleksandr’s hands clutched around the lapels of my suit jacket. Protectiveness shone in his eyes. “This isn’t Lukyan’s fault. It’s yours!” he snarled at me. “You said those words. Not me. Not Lukyan. You! You did this. You cut that woman down. Insulted her. Made her feel worthless. All because you’re too much of a goddamn coward to admit what we all already know!” Disgust washed over his face.
I froze, unable to move. He was right. Oh, God, he was right. What had I done? Shame engulfed me, taking over my limbs one by one. I slid down the wall, almost collapsing on the floor as if my legs could no longer hold me up. The only thing keeping me from falling was the fact that Aleksandr was pinning me to the spot.
“Aleksandr.” Drea was standing in the foyer, her face soft and voice calming. She reached a hand out to him.
There was a brief moment of hesitation before my son shoved away from me and retreated back to stand next to his wife. I fell, landing harshly on my ass. I didn’t even have the strength to stop myself.
“I told you not to do this. I warned you not to throw away your chance at happiness, but you did it anyway,” he scoffed, shaking his head. “If you want someone to blame, Father, look in the fucking mirror.” He moved and helped Lukyan to his feet. Lukyan massaged his throat, that fear still blazing in his eyes. He looked at me like I was some sort of wild animal, about to strike. I recognised the look. It was the way I used to look at my own father.
I stared at my hands, everything I had said and done over the past few minutes making me crumble inside. Unable to handle it, I retreated into my office and locked the door.
Everything within me broke.
