Page 119 of Bound Bride
"Correct."
"But not my dad? Beatie kept telling me that he left, that he abandoned them. I don't think he would do that. He was terrible at times but he wouldn't leave like that. If Mathew is dead, then how are we going to find him?"
Kon's entire expression slowly shifts from one of warmth to one of complete pain.
He glances down at our joined hands and his brows lightly knit together, then he looks back up at me.
Sadness rests in his eyes and when he speaks, it's low and slow as if he can somehow reduce the impact of his words by speaking softly.
"Rose. Ethan and I found your father."
The world falls away into silence, muting the birds outside and the machine beeping next to me.
Kon's next words are delivered just as softly, but they cut through my silence like a beacon, and my aching heart crumbles into a hundred pieces before he's even finished speaking.
"Rose, I am so sorry. Your father has passed away."
38
KONSTANTIN
Life after the death of Mathew Vasiliev and his brothers takes on a completely different light. Within days of Rose waking up, all hints of the Vasiliev brothers have been wiped from the city.
Their businesses have been dismantled and distributed between people under my employ, their buildings and homes have all been demolished, and any talk of them that isn't brought up by Rose or her family is strictly forbidden.
It's the least I can do and yet it's not enough.
Deep down, I don't think it will ever be enough.
The scars from the Vasilievs run deep through Rose and her family, and there's nothing I can do to remove that pain or fully soothe her.
All I can do is support her and make sure she wants for absolutely nothing. Therapy seems to help.
Both Rose and her sister settle on therapists and start seeing them daily; I don't pry but at the end of each day, Rose tells me that the sessions are going well.
She has a lot to work through, but as long as she has space to do that, I'm confident she will make a full recovery.
The war with the Italians fizzles out now that the Vasilievs aren't stoking the flames with their lies and ploys, including the sneaking of underage girls into my businesses.
After the discovery of Beatie, I closed down every single club and had every dancer and employee thoroughly double-checked before they were allowed to reopen.
Any underage employees were cared for and sent back to their families, and if that wasn't an option, then Ethan took them under his wing with a focus to get them back into education and into a life suitable for them.
And yet all of it—the apologies and begging from the Italians, the end of blood spilling in the streets, the demise of the Vasiliev family, and the rise of people crawling out of the woodwork to praise my success in the face of such a twisted scheme to drag me down, means nothing in the face of Rose.
Two weeks after she wakes up in my medical facility, she stands several feet away over the grave of her father with her head in her hands and tears soaking into the tissues she desperately clutches in her fist.
Beatie stands next to her, clinging to her arm and sniffling as she fights a losing battle against her own tears.
I had Maxim buried in the Belyaev plot in a spot previously held for me. It felt right, given that he's Rose's father.
Here, he can rest and be watched over by all the souls I lost to the war with the Italians.
It breaks my heart that behind me, thirty-seven fresh plots have been dug into the cemetery and each one holds a man whose family is now my responsibility.
None hurt as much as this though.
Every fiber of my being aches to close the gap and draw Rose into my arms to soothe her, but it won't help.
