Chapter 114 No Place to Be
❦ Rosalind ❦
I froze.
My mind couldn’t decide what to focus on between the rough, hot hand gripping my jaw, or the words that had just left his mouth.
Papa. Mama. Murder.
No.
A sharp laugh burst out of me, cracked and thin.
“You can’t be serious. You’d actually stoop this low? Say shit like that just to distract me?” My voice shook, but I scoffed anyway.
But then his face softened. And for some reason that hurt worse.
Because if he was lying, why the hell would he look at me like that? Why would his grip loosen like he was holding glass?
“2009,” Viktor said, his voice gentle. “You were five. Your father had a fight with your mother. It was about a man he thought she was seeing.” His eyes never left mine, like he wanted to drink in every reaction.
“Your mother was beautiful, Rosa. I saw the tape. I saw your father hit her. You appeared in the doorway. Claudia pulled you away. And then…” his voice turned rough, “your father didn’t stop. He beat her until she fought back. And then he put his hands on her throat. And he didn’t let go.”
My heart pounded so loud it drowned his words, but I still heard them. Every single one. Because I remembered.
God, I remembered.
That day. Mama’s perfume.
The sound of shouting. Claudia’s arms scooping me up and carrying me down the hallway.
The slam of a door behind us, and then silence as we moved further away.
It was the last day I saw her.
Papa had told me that Mama left him. She stormed out and went to the hotel to get space.
Wrong place, wrong time. A stray bullet from a mob altercation. An accident.
He’d even cried when he said it. I’d believed him.
“You’re lying,” I rasped. The words sliced my throat like glass.
Viktor didn’t answer. His other hand lifted until it touched my waist, holding me in place.
“Please,” I whispered. Begged. “Please tell me you’re lying.”
But he just looked at me.
And my heart broke.
The sound that ripped out of me was an ugly, raw wail I couldn’t swallow back.
I tried to escape the iron hold he had on me, but he only pulled me closer. His chest was solid against mine, unmovable, and it only made the scream inside me worse, begging to explode.
Flashes of Mama and Papa spun through my head. How she smiled at me when she brushed my hair. How she cried sometimes when she thought I was asleep.
How Papa spoiled us both rotten, but beneath it there’d been something else.
His jealousy. His possessiveness. The way his eyes burned if another man so much as looked at her. The way his voice cut her down if she laughed too freely in public.
I’d thought that was love. That it was just the way powerful men loved.
I cried and thrashed against him, hitting his chest with my fists, begging him to let me go.
But Viktor only palmed the back of my head and pressed my face into him, forcing me against his shirt until it was wet with my tears.
My sobs were loud in my own ears, ragged, broken, and drowning me. Blood thundered in my head. Every breath was fire, disbelief clawed at my skull.
I felt so stupid, guilty, and blind.
How had I never seen it? My father’s version of events had been too clean. And I believed it because I was five and what else could I do?
Then he sent me away to Aunt Carina, never really visiting unless he had to. Always so distant, always looking at me with guilt and telling me I looked just like her.
Just like the woman he killed.
My sobs grew softer, my breath punctuated with shallow gasps, and Viktor’s hold shifted.
His grip eased, his lips brushed at my ear, whispering,
“I’m sorry. I never wanted you to find out this way. Or any way. I know you love him.”
I flinched. The knife twisted deeper.
So that was Darko’s blackmail. That was what Papa had been running from all along.
Not justice, not exposure, just me.
He wasn’t protecting me, he was hiding from me. From what I might think of him. He’d burned his empire to ash just to keep me blind.
Then when the walls closed in, he’d gone as far as handing me over to the enemy. Selling me like a trinket just to keep his secret safe.
He never cared about me. Not once. Not really.
And I… God, I had been killing myself to keep his legacy breathing, bending myself into knots to make him proud.
Proud. Of what? He took Mama from me.
He took her from me.
The tears came back so violently I thought I’d choke on them.
Viktor’s hold loosened in that moment and I shoved him away, hard.
I bolted for the door. My legs carried me without thought, driven by shame and grief and rage, all knotted up and choking me.
All those years I’d believed a lie. I’d been making myself small to please a murderer.
Viktor lunged for me. “Rosa…”
“Don’t touch me!” I screamed, more out of shame than anger.
I wrenched the door open and slammed straight into Adrian.
His arms came up, trying to steady me, but I shoved him off and kept running. I couldn’t breathe in this house, not with Viktor, his heat and his truths.
I heard Viktor shouting my name behind me, but I didn’t look back.
My keys were already in my hand, snatched up along the way. I threw myself into my car, slammed the door, and started it with trembling fingers.
Viktor burst out after me, barking at the soldatos scattered near the driveway and gesturing wildly—but I was already flooring it.
The gate was sliding closed, at his command no doubt. I slipped through just in time, the metal scraping the sides of my car with a loud screech.
Tears blinded me, streaking hotly down my face.
Mama. Oh, God. Mama.
The freeway lights blurred into streaks, the road pulling me forward, and I had nowhere to go.
I couldn’t go to the Grand Marlow. It wasn’t mine anymore.
I couldn’t go home, not with all the ghosts of him still there.
I had no one to call. No one.
Just me, the dark road, and a heart in pieces.