Page 116 of Untamed Beast
“Mama, I can’t bury my head in the sand the way you do.”
I have always known I am very different from my mama, but in this situation the contrast is stark. She must know that my father is in danger from Leks, and she’s not lifting a finger to do anything about it.
Their love is so different from the urgency I feel to see Leks, to know if he’s okay, that I can barely fathom it.
Yuri’s standing outside the door to my father’s office, his arms folded across his chest. Despite the harsh look in his eyes, I feel relieved to see him there. It means that Leks is here. My heart beats an unsteady rhythm, the pace picking up as hope floods my veins again.
He shakes his head when I reach for the door. “Don’t, Natalia. You’re not going to like what’s happening.”
Ugh. Why does no one think that I can handle violence when it’s apparently fundamental to my family’s existence?
“I can handle it.”
“Maksim blew up the whole port. I don’t think Leks is going easy on him.” Yuri’s jaw clenches. “Lekswas right there when Maksim blew up the warehouse. The only reason he survived is that the blast threw him straight into the sea instead of through a window like the other unlucky bastards who were still inside.”
“My papa did that?” I breathe. The whole port, destroyed. All those bodies on stretchers…
“He knew Leks was onto him about the paintings.”
“How?” The thought lances through me with horror. “Were you the spy, Yuri?” Is this a trap? What if I walk through the door and find that Leks is dead?
He lets out a snort. My husband tortured me about this for days and he’s fucking laughing?
“Tell me who it was, Yuri!” I demand. “Do you even know what I’ve been through?”
Yuri holds up his hands in surrender. His glaze flicks behind me, to where Vera’s holding Dasha. If there’s one creature on this planet I can trust…
“It was her,” he says simply. “Your cat.”
“Dasha?”
“Your father put a listening device in her collar during your first visit home.”
It clicks into place. My father was listening to us the whole time. Fury and horror mix together. Not only has he killed countless people, he’s been spying on me as well?
As outrage burns through my veins, I know that I’mready for whatever lies inside my father’s office. I’m not sure that any fate is too horrific for him.
“Get out of my way.”
“Leks told me not to let you in.”
That makes me furious. This is my battle as much as it is his.
“Too bad,” I spit at Yuri. “He’s lost every right to dictate what I can and can’t do.”
“Natalia, don’t go in there,” he pleads. But he lets me push past him through the door.
My father is tied to a chair, Leks standing above him with a silver-handled knife, his midnight-blue eyes wilder than I’ve ever seen them.
Blood gushes from my father’s hand, his pinky finger on the ground. One look at the bruises covering his face and his swollen eyes, shows that he’s been on the receiving end of Leks’s punches too.
That’s not what disturbs me. It’s the blood staining Leks’s forehead, the ash that covers him, and the burns on his forearms. He looks like he’s been to hell and back.
“I told you she was on the way here,” my father crows. He turns to me, his pleading voice making my stomach churn. “Malyshka, stop him. Your husband is trying to kill me.”
I ignore him.
I expect Leks to be furious with me, to accuse me of coming here to save my father. Instead his lips part on a gasp when he sees me. He drops the bloodied knife in his hand and turns to me, closing the distance between us with long strides.
