Chapter 33

TRAPPED

Katerina’s eyes blinked; she adjusted herself on the bed. A wave of emotions hit her: uncertainty, fear, and anxiety. Today was the day she was going to come clean, tell Ivan Yelena’s script.

A lie.

To compound other lies.

She adjusted her neck, tilting it to ease the stiffness. Her feet touched the ground as she got out of bed. She walked to her mirror, catching her reflection.

“This is way better than being stuck here,” Katerina muttered.

Rather than being sad at her inability to get to the root of the matter, she decided to look on the bright side. A smile appeared on her face.

“Today’s going to be a good day.”

She began to hum, syncing with the rhythm of the words “today’s going to be a good day.”

And with one shoulder twirl, she began to dance. She stopped and smiled again.

She heard a knock on the door. It was Yelena, just as she suspected.

“Hey, Yelena.”

“Katerina, I came in here to make sure you haven’t developed cold feet.”

“Cold feet? Nah,” Katerina replied.

“Good! It means this should happen swiftly. You don’t seem prepared, though,” Yelena said.

“Since it’s going to be my last night here, I must have overslept.”

Yelena raised an eyebrow. “Alright. I’m hoping you still remember the plan?”

“How dare I forget? Even though I believe it needs to be tweaked a little bit.”

“What do you mean?” Yelena asked.

“Your plan doesn’t take into consideration the accident I had, therefore making the plan badly scripted.”

“So what would you rather do?” Yelena asked.

“You’re going to have to wait till the show is on. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get prepared.”

“Do not take an eternity!” Yelena said, stepping out.

“The main character is never late to her own show,” Katerina raised her voice, ensuring Yelena heard her.

Katerina slipped into a silky burnt-orange dress, letting her hair fall on her shoulders as she touched up her face a little.

Admiring herself in the mirror, she smiled.

“Let’s go set you free, baby girl,” she whispered.

Leaving the room and walking down the hallway, she met Yelena, who was waiting for her.

“Thirty minutes? Really?” Yelena asked.

“No way I’m walking out of here looking like life happened to me,” Katerina replied.

“Okay, fine! I’ll go in, wait a bit, and then in a few minutes you’ll come in.”

“Fine by me.”

Yelena left and walked right into Ivan‘s office.

Katerina was left pacing around. She seemed confident in front of Yelena, even though she was far from assured.

Never let your enemy know what you feel, how you feel, or when you feel it. She thought.

Most importantly, she was scared; scared of how Ivan would react, of him figuring out that the woman he married only did so for his money and was willing to jeopardize his life for it.

She looked at her wristwatch; it was time. So she told herself to keep her emotions to one side and decided to swallow the entire process.

As she opened the door, she met Ivan, who was shocked to see her looking way better.

“Katerina,” Ivan said as he got up abruptly. “There is a strict warning about leaving your room! So why did you leave, and what are you doing here?”

“I can explain,” Katerina said in a whisper.

“Ivan, please hear her out. I was the one who ordered the guards to open the door and let her out,” Yelena said.

Ivan was shocked to see Yelena and Katerina work together, that was something he had never seen before.

“I must admit this is new,” he said, gazing at Katerina. “This better be good,” he added, returning to his seat.

“Uhm… I don’t know where to start,” Katerina said.

“Oh come on, Katerina. Speak, before he changes his mind.” Yelena said.

“Fine! I’ll start. My memory… It’s back, and I know exactly what happened, but I fear that you might not like it.”

Ivan sat up, adjusting himself in the chair, his eyes narrowing.

“Katerina, this is not the time to come up with some irrelevant thing. There was no accident and no memory loss!”

“That’s the thing with you, you never listen.”

“I think you should listen to her this time,” Yelena pleaded.

Ivan signaled her to continue.

“It happened last night. Every single thing came back to me. Every incident, every conversation, all the time we spent together. Every single one of them until, of course, the accident. It feels like I’m back to my original self.” Katerina said softly.

Ivan got up, eager to understand what Katerina was saying.

“Good. I’m glad your memories are back. Now, would you tell me why you killed my father?”

“This is the hard part,” Katerina muttered.

“What’d you say?”

“You’ve got to believe me, Ivan. I never wanted to kill your father. I never wanted any of this to happen. Truth be told, I came into your life because of the amount of wealth you have. I was never drawn to you physically, what attracted me was your money.” She paused, trying to take it one bit at a time.

“When I met you and spent time with you, I got to know you and then I realized that you are a great person to be with. Then I fell in love.” She continued.

Yelena raised an eyebrow, giving a suspicious look.

“Then I got into trouble, I had a lot of debts I had to pay and I started getting threatening messages. The loan sharks were all over me, threatening to kill my mom and take everything away from her.” She paused and took a few steps.

“I don’t know how, but one of them found out that you and I had gotten married. I dread the day he called, letting me know he was watching me. He threatened to kill me, kill my mom, and even added you to the list. A part of me thought I could solve this by myself, so I started researching, trying to get him. But it only got me into more trouble than I could handle.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ivan asked.

“I wanted to. I so much wanted to. But you already had a lot on your plate, considering the attacks the Morozovs were facing consistently. I just thought I would fix this… I’d fix this I told myself this all the time,” Katerina said, turning and staring at him.

“So I told Slavik about it and we planned to meet a guy in Mexico who would give us an upper hand in dealing with the man after me. That was why we went to Mexico in the first place. But then I realized it was a trap, to set me up, to blackmail and extort me. So that day I was hurrying to the house to tell you what happened.”

“Amusing to see that you only thought to come to me when everything was no longer going your way,” Ivan said.

“That’s not it, Ivan,” Katerina said.

“Then what is?” Ivan yelled. “I lost my father because my wife couldn’t come to me to tell me about her problem.”

“I wanted to tell you, and then the accident happened. If I’d known they were planning a complete takedown I would have told you earlier.”

“Well, congratulations. You are five years and twenty-one days late.”

“I’m sorry, Ivan. I really am.”

“No, you’re not! All my life I thought you actually loved me, but now I see it was all for the money. I don’t know what’s worse. Realizing that the one you gave your entire life to was only being present because she had something to gain.”

Katerina broke down in tears.

“Well, at least now we know she isn’t the one who killed the Don,” Yelena said, approaching Ivan. “What are you going to do to her?”

“I’ll leave. I’ll pack my things and be out of this estate. I’ll move to another city or another country just to make sure I stay out of your life. You don’t have to worry about me, you’ll never see me or hear from me” Katerina said.

“And you think that will cut it?” Ivan asked.

“Well, if you ask me, even though I hate to admit it…the girl is pretty innocent. She got herself into something way bigger than her, and she should have come to you, but she did not. You should let her go.”

Ivan laughed.

“Let her go?”

“Yes. I understand this is really hard for you. But look at five years of your life down the drain because of a bad decision.” Yelena placed a hand on Ivan’s shoulder and used the other to cup his face.

“There’s a thing about trauma: always seeing the person who caused the pain hurts a lot, and I know you don’t want that.”

Ivan took a few strides leaving Yelena’s grip.

“You must think I’m crazy! You might think I don’t know what this is! Katerina goes nowhere! You bloody gold digger, you stay with this gold owner until you die!”

Katerina froze.

The words that came out of Ivan’s mouth felt like a hammer hitting her heart. She was trapped.

“Ivan, you’ve got to think this through. You can’t possibly want her to remain in this house,” Yelena said, her voice shaking.

“I’ll do whatever I want, Yelena!” Ivan said and faced Katerina. “Till death do us part, wife! But be assured, you’d rather be served death in one sitting than a lifetime with me.”