20

Anatoli
The silver moon shines over the automatic garage doors as they open for me.
I drive my Mustang inside and the door lowers once I’m inside.
When I bought this house, the garage was like the ordinary type you’d find on a house this old. I modernized it to what it is now and extended the space to accommodate my cars and my bike.
Although I haven’t been here much over the years, I always feel privileged to have this home. It’s been mine for the last five years. The house was being maintained by Pavel Butyrskaya’s great aunt whom I approached when I wanted to buy it.
Apart from my work on the garage and improving the surveillance, I kept everything pretty much the same and either sold or stored away what I didn’t need. The house was big enough that I didn’t need to hire a separate storage unit.
It may seem odd that I kept their things but I did it because they meant a lot to my mother. She grew up with them here after her mother died. When I came along, they took care of me too.
They were a family of three: Pavel, Vittoria, and their son Elmier who was five years younger than me.
Both Mom and Leif lost contact with them after we left for Russia because they moved the following year and their jobs took them all over the world.
It always saddens me when I think of what might have happened to them. They disappeared around the time I turned nineteen. In our world, when you vanish the way they did, it means you either took yourself off the grid. Or, someone with above board skills killed you and disposed of your body in such a way that no one would be able to find you ever again.
According to how the Butyrskayas left things behind, people assumed the latter, and quite rightly so.
Because of the covert jobs Pavel did for the previous Pakhan, and the consistent traveling, he and his family could have met their end anywhere.
I shouldn’t know this, but Pavel was part of the Knights Secret Force. The division consists of an elite group of enforcer assassins who only go by a number. No names.
In some cases, they don’t even know who their peers are. The concept was borrowed from our Italian mafia allies.
I get out of the car and head into the house.
When I reach the hallway, the sensor lights snap on and my footsteps echo on the marble floor, disrupting the blanket of silence covering the house. Most of the staff have either left for the day or are sleeping. Ehlga won’t be sleeping, though.
Knowing exactly where to find her, I make my way into the kitchen. She’s inside kneading dough for her special bread. She’s wearing a dressing gown and her hair is piled neatly into a bun on top of her head.
“Baking at this hour?” I raise my brows.
“I thought it would be nice to wake up to freshly made bread.”
Since I hardly eat bread, the gesture means she’s taken a motherly shine to Avrora.
“I’m sureshewill like that.” I let her know I’m aware of what she’s up to.
Ehlga gives me a warm smile and the light in her eyes sparkles. “I thought so.”
Something must have happened today to tone her down because she was completely against the entire idea of Avrora.
“Was everything okay today?”
“Yes. All Avrora’s things are here now. I’ll help her go through them tomorrow when we come back fromthe doctor.” She enunciates those words because she hates the grittier part of the plan.
“I can send her with someone else, if you wish.”
“Like Gytha? Not even I can be that cruel.”
Ehlga doesn’t like Gytha and puts every woman who takes an interest in me under the same scrutiny you’d expect from a caring mother.
“What’s wrong with Gytha now?” I incline my head, getting ready for her to bitch at me.
“What was she doing here, Anatoli?” She gives me a hard stare. She’s the only person I allow to speak to me this way. “I know you two have this on-and-off relationship, but it’s completely inappropriate to have her here when you’re planning on getting married in a few weeks. I’ll always be here for you whenever and wherever you need me, but some things are wrong.”
“We’re off. We’ve been off for nearly a year and I’m not planning on being on again. It’s just work.”
“Doessheknow that?” She blinks several times.
“Yes.”
“Does she accept it?”
That’s a different story. “She will have to.”
“Good. I get this whole plan and of course I’m on board, but please don’t forget you have to know when to show compassion. Avrora may appear strong, but I sense something is broken inside her. Something that doesn’t feel like it’s about this.”
I narrow my eyes, curious for her to elaborate. Something must have definitely occurred today for her to say that. “Did something happen?”
“I’m not sure, but I think you should be mindful of her. She’s Uther’s daughter, but she’s a person as well. What’s happened to her is a big deal, but it feels like there’s something more underneath all that.”
I’ve read Avrora’s medical and psych reports so I’m aware she had a difficult childhood. When she was nine, she was hit by a car and left in a coma for six months, then rehab for two years. Just as she got back to some sort of normal, her mother lost her mind, eventually killing herself. Avrora was only fourteen. It was she who found her mother dead.
I haven’t told Ehlga about Avrora’s background and I think it’s best I keep it that way. I don’t want her to open her heart any more than she seems to.
“I don’t want you to lose yourself in this.” Ehlga’s eyes fill with concern.
I won’t disappoint her by telling her I was lost a long time ago. Ehlga thinks she saved me, and I will honor that. When Leif first put me in her care she’d just lost both her husband and her son in an accident, so we seemed to become each other’s family.
“I will consider all things.”
“That’s good to hear.” She stops kneading the bread and judging from the pensive look she gives me, I know she has more to say that I most likely won’t like. “You’re going to have to tell her about her father one day you know?”
I was right. “I know.”
“I understand the reasons for keeping the truth from her, but she’s going to be your wife soon.”
“I know, but it has to be this way for the moment.” I’d be hellbent on getting answers if the situation were reversed. I’ve only told Avrora just enough to terrify her into complying, but I haven’t hit the core. And I told her not to ask me again. “Right now I don’t want her to know anything about me.”
Nothing at all, not even about my father. When it comes to her, one story can’t be told without the other. Those who know what my father did aren’t going to be concerned with knowing which of his men he sent to carry out the hit on Mom and me. Avrora, on the other hand, will figure out that it was her father.
“Really?”
“Yes. But I promise I will talk to her when the time is right.” Whenever that will be.
“Okay. I respect that.” Ehlga nods and the light comes back to her eyes. “Go, get to bed. That’s enough talking for us.”
“Don’t stay up too much longer.”
“I’ll be in bed within the hour.” She chuckles, seeming more relaxed.
I leave her and head upstairs to my room. When I get there and notice the light shining from underneath the door, I wonder if Avrora is still awake. I open the door and my gaze settles on the beauty asleep in my bed.
All that hair of hers that I want to run my fingers through is sprawled out around her, and the moonlight mingles with the room light shining over her body.
She really is beautiful, even in her sleep.
Unlike last night, she’s wearing a loose nightshirt that shows off just the right amount of her breasts and her slender body.
When she shuffles, I move closer to her and her scent wraps around me within seconds. It’s a combination of nectar and roses and underlying feminine mystique that makes me want to pick her apart layer by layer.
Her brows wrinkle and I expect her to wake up, but she doesn’t.
She shuffles again, parting her lips to mumbles something but I can’t tell what she’s saying. I realize then that she’s dreaming. Or possibly having a nightmare from the worried expression on her face. Maybe she’s dreaming about me and I’m terrifying her even in her sleep.
Poor little princess. There’s no one to rescue her from me.
I want to strip her bare again, but this time, I want to see deeper than the surface. I want to see the wounds that created her invisible scars.
It wasn’t Gytha who gave me Avrora’s medical records. It was Leif, because she’d lost her mother too.
Could that be it?
Is that what broke her? The loss of her mother?
That’s what broke me.
Nothing will be able to rid my mind of the horror I experienced of watching my mother die. Nothing. I can still see the life of the living leaving her eyes.
I wonder if Avrora has memories of her mother like that too. The terror of seeing the death of a loved one.
If she does, then we have something in common and misery loves company.
I sense there’s more to her, though. More secrets.
Secrets she might have shared with her belovedMikhail.
Does he know what lies beneath the layers of her porcelain skin that I want to peel away?
One thing I haven’t been able to negate is her love for him, and his for her. I could see he loves her just from looking at him.
Does it make me a petty bastard that I want to take everything from him-including the woman he loves-just because I can?
Avrora shakes her head and rolls onto her side, trapped in her mind.
Trapped in what I’ve decided must be a nightmare.
Another touch of humanity sparks inside me and I step away, deciding to give her some reprieve. I won’t add to her darkness tonight.
Perhaps my action is a kindness a Galitze doesn’t deserve, but I do it anyway, retreating to the room I used when I was a boy.
Everything will happen in its own time, but it’s so much better when you’re the master of your own destiny.