Page 227 of Marrying My Ex's Brother
“Yes.”
“Does he think it’s me?” I ask.
“Yes, unfortunately,” Viktor says. “I’ve been looking for you for hours, I turned all the hospitals in the county upside down.”
“Why didn’t Yaromir go?”
“Because he’s done looking for proof. He found your ring and blood near the water. In his mind, that was enough.”
My eyes burn.
My ring. He found my ring.
Of course he thinks I’m dead.
“Who was it?” I ask.
Viktor’s jaw works once. “Katya.”
The name hits like another gunshot.
I stop breathing.
For a moment, I’m not in the hospital bed anymore. I’m back by the river in my dream. Gray water. Wet stone. Katya in her silver dress, pale and afraid, trying to speak but unable to make sound. Her eyes moving over my shoulder.
Then the gunshot.
I press a hand to my mouth. “No.”
Viktor watches me closely. “You knew?”
“I dreamed it.”
The words sound insane as soon as I say them.
“I saw her by the river. She was trying to tell me something. Then there was a shot.” My throat tightens. “I thought it was just the nightmare mixing everything together.”
“Maybe it was.”
“No.” I shake my head, and the room tilts slightly. “No, she was there. Or she knew something. Dmitri said run, then he shot me. But before that…” I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing myself back into the warehouse. “Was someone else there?” I can’t remember. “But Katya…” I open my eyes. “Katya is dead?”
“Yes.”
The answer is quiet. Final.
I should feel something. Satisfaction, maybe. Justice. She betrayed me. She smiled beside Dmitri. She stood in my wedding photographs knowing what she had done.
But all I feel is sick.
Now she’s a body by the canal.
Because of Dmitri?
Because of me?
Because everything around the Volkovs turns bloody eventually?
“I don’t understand,” I whisper.
