“Margot warned me about it, but I didn’t have the time to tell you,” she said, wiping her tears away from her face. “I didn’t know what he’d do. And I was going to tell you about this,” she continued, referring to the phone. “I wanted to. I’ve had it since that night, but I didn’t respond to anything. I made a choice, Fedya. I chose you. I just…” Her voice broke, tears threatening to spill again. “I needed time—time to tell you everything, in case—”
She couldn’t finish the sentence. Her voice had cracked pathetically as Fedya’s eyes moved from the phone in her hands to her. He stared at her, his expression suddenly blank. There was no anger anymore, but there was no relief, either. The stillness within him was more frightening than any outburst.
She couldn’t take it.
“Please say something,” she whispered, curling her hands into fists by her sides.
She took a step towards him, but he abruptly turned around, crossing the room in two strides as he headed for the door. He opened the bedroom door and looked at the guard stationed in the hallway.
“Nobody goes in or out, except me,” he said flatly. “No other exceptions.”
Maeve followed behind him, stopping at the door. “Fedya.”
“You’re staying here until I decide what the hell to do,” he said, the iciness in his voice causing her to step back. She said nothing, bit down on her tongue, feeling her heart crack into pieces as she watched him walk away, slamming the door behind him.
She stood there for a few seconds, furiously blinking the tears away. But then the lingering smell of Margot’s severed tongue reached her nostrils again, and she was bolting to the bathroom, spewing out her guts and crying at the same time.
Chapter 25 - Fedya
“You were right,” Fedya said as he dumped the contents of Cormac’s package on Mikhail’s desk.
He could barely breathe as he stood amongst his brothers and cousins in the Pakhan’s study. His chest felt like it was caving in, as if there were an open, gaping wound tearing wider and wider with every reminder of Maeve’s betrayal. He’d rather be shot a hundred times than relive that moment.
He had brought her into his home, his life, and his family. And while she hadn’t raised a hand against them, she’d lied repeatedly. She’d withheld everything, and fine, maybe she had no reason to owe him loyalty in the beginning. She hated him for as long as he could remember, and she had every reason to.
But they’d grown past that. They’d grown closer, become intimate too many times with each other. He’d admitted just how much he loved her. But what hurt the most, what killed him, what burned him to ashes was knowing that she’d had a hundred chances to come clean. Yet, he had to find out in the worst fucking way possible.
There wasn’t even a little bit of surprise on Mikhail’s features. “I usually am.” He cast a bored look at the tongue on his table and gestured for one of the guards to get rid of him.
Fedya wasn’t in the mood for his cousin’s gloating. “This isn’t the time for a victory dance.”
“No,” the Pakhan agreed, leaning back in his chair. “But I’d be a fool if I said I didn’t expect something like this. We all did.”
Fedya had never felt so fucking stupid in his entire life.
“She could’ve messed us up,” Viktor said finally, dragging a hand over his jaw. “She had the opportunity to, but she didn’t.”
Mikhail shook his head in disagreement. “Just because she hesitated doesn’t mean she didn’t think about it. She didn’t tell him the truth, did she? What’s the chance she would have told him if this letter hadn’t come at all?”
Fedya’s fingers found his hair, tugging hard at the roots to the point where he felt pain. His mind felt fractured into two equal parts, one half devastated and enraged, and hurt beyond compare. But the other was scrambling to protect her in any way possible because deep down, he knew that despite all of this, he wouldn’t let her go. Not even over his dead body. It disgusted him how achingly he loved her.
“She’s pregnant,” he announced, staring straight at the wall behind Mikhail. “I’d rather die than release her to her father.”
“How convenient,” Ivan, one of Mikhail’s brothers, muttered from where he stood at the corner of the room. “Aleksander will come for me, that’s for sure. I fucked his wife without knowing who she was, and he still hasn’t gotten over it yet. So the likelihood that he will go to Maeve is slim. As it is, Maeve’s enemy is her father and her father alone.”
“We could try to make Cormac still believe he has a leash on her,” Kostya said, tilting his head. “Let him believe he has the upper hand.”
“No,” Fedya frowned, his answer abrupt. “He mutilated her mother-figure to send a message. He knows Maeve’s lost to him and that’s why he’s pushing now.”
“And you?” Mikhail asked, raising an eyebrow. “What’s your move?”
“I get her out, somewhere far away from here, away from all this.” He stared at the burner phone on Mikhail’s table like it would explode any minute from now. “Until Cormac is dead.”
Ilya frowned. “You’re just gonna take her and run?”
“I’m protecting my family,” Fedya responded harshly, sending a venomous look his brother’s way. “That includes her now and the child in her womb. If that’s your definition of running, then be my guest.”
“Alright, alright, let’s all relax now,” Viktor, ever the pacifier, said gently, easing the tension in the room. “That sounds like a good idea, Fedya. I’m pretty sure the rest of us can handle Cormac, Aleksander, and their pack of wolves.”
