So Sevastyan was just putting up a front to keep me safe, to fulfill his promise to Paxán—

“And . . . I expected to wed you.” He admitted, “I want to.”

An answering want bubbled up inside me! Then I remembered all the reasons it would never work. “Earlier, you ordered me from the room like a dog—in front of your brother.”

“You’re not to be around him, Natalie. He’s dangerous.”

I wondered what it took for a man like Sevastyan to deem another dangerous. “Why?”

“Because I can never predict what he’ll do.”

“What would it have hurt for you to tell me what you and your brother have been doing for me?”

“The plan is risky. At any moment we could fail. If I tell you I will do something, it’s because I’m confident I can. Not so with this. Plus, the less you know, the safer it is for you.”

Plausible deniability. And to be fair, I couldn’t see him telling me, “I have an idea—probably won’t work—but I’m giving it a shot anyway.”

He added, “Besides, if I disclosed this to you, then you would have asked about Maksim, forcing me to continue my lie to you. I don’t want to lie anymore.”

“What about your becoming the vor? Don’t you think that’s a decision we should have made together?”

“You might have talked me out of it, though I can see no way around it.”

“You didn’t even give me a chance to come to the same conclusion? I’ve surprised you before. I’m not il logical—well, except for being with you.”

Pain flared in his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t want your opinion. But I know that the more I talk to you, the more you will expect me to.”

“You’re right. I would have liked for you to tell me at least the most basic things about your past!”

“Maybe I haven’t wanted to reveal these things because I know it will drive you away! The more I want you, the more I dread this. You’ve seen my dread.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Each night, I’ve been tempted to talk to you. A couple of times I came so close. Then, in the morning I would curse my stupidity, my weakness.” He turned away. “I’ve never been so weak with another. And maybe . . . maybe I blamed you for making me feel like this.”

“Like what?”

He whirled around on me. “Like I’ll die without you! And if my past drives you away, then where does that leave me? Fucking dead ! So why have I also been feeling the need to tell you of the past? It makes no sense!”

“That’s your excuse for your coldness?” After every blissful night, he’d awakened even more resolved to shut me out, blaming me because he’d almost folded? “Let me get this straight. You’ve been a dick to me because you wanted me more than you did before?”

He didn’t deny it.

“God! Again, you’re not giving me a chance. You’re driving me away by not talking to me. You know what? I—give—up. If you dreaded every time I asked about your past, you’re really going to now that I’ve stopped.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you get to keep your secrets.” Fresh tears spilled down my face. “I don’t want them anymore!”

“You want me to confide in you because you think it will fix things in me, heal me. It won’t!” Voice rising with each word, he said, “I will always have these shadows inside me!”

I yelled back, “Damn it, Sevastyan, I never wanted the shadows to disappear—I wanted them to be our shadows!”

His lips parted, eyes filled with bafflement.

“I wanted to know you; not fix you.”

He recovered enough to say, “And what if these shadows show you that you can never have what you want of me? That my past makes it impossible for me to offer you the future you crave.”

I dashed tears away with the back of my hand. “What kind of future do you think I want?”

“A life with a good man.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“But a man is defined by his past,” he said. “Which means I’m a killer. I always will be. There’s nothing I can do to erase that for you. No matter how hard I work or how much I sacrifice, it follows me and always will. How do I keep it from tainting you?”

“I already know about your occupation. I accepted it. I’ve seen you kill twice. Is there more?”

He shot to his feet, pacing again. Why would he answer that? If he equated his revelations with the end of our relationship, he wouldn’t. Not unless he accepted that it would end if he didn’t tell me.

“You don’t know what you’re asking of me! I never told Paxán these things, and he came to trust me. To love me. Why can it not be the same with you?” Sevastyan was angling for his own self-preservation. “Why can’t you just pretend my past is a blank void?” Under his breath, he said bitterly, “That’s what I do.”

“I can’t pretend. I have to know.”

He stabbed his fingers through his hair, yanking at the ends. “Natalie, I need you . . . I need you not to know me. And still stay.”

“I swear to you that will not happen.”

He dropped his hands. “Goddamn it, it must!”

I shook my head, my tears drying. “Sevastyan . . .”

He faced me and stood motionless, as if awaiting a gallows drop.

“. . . I’m already gone.” I rose to dress.

He clutched at his throat as if starving for air. “Don’t speak like that!” He lunged forward to clutch my shoulders. “Look at me. Look at me!”

His eyes appeared full black. “I will tell you that I’ve killed many sons, many fathers. I started at the age of twelve.”

I held my breath.

“The first father I killed was my own.”

Chapter 44

Sevastyan’s admission rocked me. Not only because of what he’d said, but because of the shame emanating from him.

He released his grip on my shoulders. “Say something, Natalie.” He was waiting for my disgust—and he had zero doubt he would receive it.

Little as I knew about Sevastyan, at least one trait had been made clear: his unwavering loyalty toward those he loved. Considering that he’d been only twelve when this had happened, and he’d hinted that things had been bad with his alcoholic father, I had to believe he’d been defending himself. “Your father must’ve left you no choice.”

Sevastyan did a double take, seeming shocked that I hadn’t run from the room. “How can you say that? Did you not hear me? I’ve just confessed to . . . patricide.”

“I saw how you were with Paxán. You would’ve been devoted to any father who was worthy of it.”

Sevastyan sat at the foot of the bed, then stood abruptly, only to sit once more. The pain inside this man! Some mechanism deep within is broken.

“Tell me the circumstances.”

Narrowing his gaze, he bit out, “I got my father to the top of the stairs in our home, looked him in the eye, and pushed him, knowing he would likely die.”

“What happened before this?”

“Are the facts not damning enough? As a boy, I made a decision to kill. And I’ve been doing it ever since.”

I pressed on. “What happened before your father died?”

Sevastyan’s brows drew tight, as if I’d just confounded him. “I . . . I never got this far when I imagined telling you. I always expected you to back away, fear in your eyes.”

Instead, I took a seat on the bed, settling in with my back against the headboard. “Tell me now.”

Looking anywhere but at me, he began, “My father was violent when he drank. My earliest memories are of blocking blows. He was a massive man, with these fists . . . they were unyielding. They were weapons.”

His earliest memories? The idea of Sevastyan as a little boy, abused by the man who should’ve been protecting him from harm, burned inside my brain.

I remembered his words: I am singularly suited to fighting, always have been. Paxán had witnessed him taking a beating and had puzzled how someone so young could continue to rise.

Sevastyan had been able to take blow after blow—because he’d been so used to them.

Oh, God. Trying for a steady tone, I said, “Please go on.”

“He considered himself a disciplined man, bragging to others that he only drank when it was dark out. Which meant he never stopped during the Siberian winters. Even now, I hate winter. Autumn just as much.”

“Why?”

“It will always be a time of tension for me, a season to anticipate pain. Each day the sun sets sooner. Anticipation can be as hard as enduring.”

All of this had been going on during these fall weeks that I’d shared with him? And I’d never known what deep-seated pain he’d been battling. “Was your mother with you?”

“For a time, but she couldn’t protect us from him. She died two winters before he did. Supposedly she fell down those same stairs. A tragic accident, they said. Yet I have no doubt he pushed her. He just left her body there, mottled with bruises, cast away like garbage. Dmitri found her the next morning. He was too young to handle that sight, was inconsolable.”

Who could handle seeing something like that at any age?

“Though I loved my mother dearly, I remember being angrier about my brother’s suffering than I was sad over her passing.”

“I’m so sorry.” Sevastyan had lost his mother at ten. How much of her abuse had he and his brothers witnessed before then? “Please tell me about the night your father died.”

I saw the exact moment Sevastyan decided to step off the trestle; he swallowed thickly. “My father knew all of his sons’ hiding places inside the manor. No matter how quiet we were, he would find us, seeming to delight in our fear. So my brothers and I often hid outside when he was drunk.”

Now I knew why Sevastyan hated surprises. Now I understood why he’d nearly gone ballistic when Maksim revealed that “quiet was rewarded.”

“The last night I saw my brothers as boys, I was scarcely twelve. Maksim was eleven and Dmitri seven. Over the years, we’d all suffered concussions, broken limbs and ribs.”

How casually Sevastyan related that—life-threatening abuse reduced to background information.

“Yet on this night, my father’s rage seemed even sharper than usual. Though it was the dead of a Siberian winter, we had no choice but to flee outside.” Sevastyan’s eyes went vacant, as if he was reliving it. “I dressed Dmitri as warmly and as quickly as I could, then we waded through snow to reach the closest outbuilding, a drafty toolshed. We waited there, freezing for hours, staring at the shelter of our home. The manor was aglow with light, the windows fogging from the warmth inside. Our family had such wealth, but we were about to die of exposure.”

I could imagine the scene so clearly: three traumatized boys yearning for that brightly lit manor, while fearing the monster within it.

“When Dmitri’s lips started turning blue, I knew I had to go inside, to see if the old bastard had passed out. . . .” Sevastyan’s eyes flashed toward me. “I don’t want to remember any of this. I never did! I’ve never told another about this night.”

“Please, trust me with this.”

Seeming to steel himself, he began again, confronting this agony for me. “I hadn’t gotten past the kitchen before he spotted me. I ran, but my legs were so stiff from cold it was like my feet were trapped in quicksand. He caught me, repeatedly bludgeoning my face. One of my eyes swelled shut, and I could barely see from the other.”

Sevastyan had started sweating, his chest sheening with it. Was he aware that his own fists were clenched till his knuckles were white? I wanted to touch him, soothe him, but feared he’d go silent.

“He demanded to know where his other sons were, vowed he’d beat me to death if I didn’t tell him. Somehow I managed to get loose, fought my way up the stairs. On the landing, he caught me again.”

Eyes watering, I whispered, “Go on.”

“For the first time in my life, I did more than brace for a blow. I . . . I hit back.” Even after all these years, Sevastyan’s tone was filled with astonishment. “He was stunned, but hurt too. I was big for my age—and all of the sudden my fists felt unyielding. I’d never struck another, not even Maksim in play. When my father recovered from his shock, his gaze turned lethal. I knew he was about to kill me.”

“What happened then?” My heart was in my throat.

“Years’ worth of rage welled up inside me, and I . . . beat him. Over and over. He’d backed to the edge of the stairway, swaying there unsteadily. Our eyes met. I’ll never forget the uncanny feeling I had at that moment—I knew this was exactly what had happened to my mother. He’d beaten her, driving her to the brink. Stranger still, he . . . he registered my comprehension. And he . . . had this bloody smirk as he said, ‘You’ll grow up to be just like me. Whenever you look in the mirror, you’ll see my face.’ The idea was so horrific—I launched my fist, knowing he would fall, hoping he would die. He snapped his neck against the first-floor wall.” Sevastyan slid another glance at me.

“I’m here. What did you do after?”

“I knew I’d be sent to prison for murder. So I covered his body and retrieved my brothers. Afterward, I gathered what cash I could find and ran into the night. I had enough to reach St. Petersburg, to get lost among the other children there.”