Page 29 of Mistaken
There’s another couple leaving, too, and I remember them even in my haze of misery. Alexi and Lucya Turgenev.
“Ah, you escaped!” Lucya says with a smile. “I remember it took hours to remove ourselves from our own wedding festivities.” She’s lovely, with dark hair and pale blue eyes. She’s Russian but her English is perfect and accent-less, so I suspect she was born here. She was the first one to smile at me sincerely, not with speculation or actual malice. “I must congratulate you on that kiss. That had to have beat the world record for the longest kiss in a Russian Orthodox wedding.”
“That’s a thing?” I blurt.
Lucya laughs delightedly, and even her damn laugh is perfect. Like a bell, or something. “It is. It’s a Russian wedding tradition, to make the kiss at the altar last as long as humanly possible.” She tilted her head, “No one told you about that?”
I feel unutterably stupid. “I… no. I wish I had been better prepared.”
She nodded wisely, “I heard the wedding had to be moved up.” She gave me a little wink and turned as her husband took her arm. “Oh, are we ready to leave, darling?”
Alexi is as blond as she is dark, gigantic, like Maksim but with a scar that crosses his left cheek and ends on his jawline. He’s terrifying, but he’s staring down at Lucya like she is something precious, and beautiful. “Da,?????.The car is out front.”
These two are also bristling with bodyguards, which makes it clear that Alexi and Maksim are not just your standard business associates.
Lucya takes my hand, squeezing gently. “Call me when you’re back from your honeymoon, I’ll take you to lunch and we’ll catch up on all these things.”
I feel a swell of relief, “That would be lovely, thank you.”
Maksim helps me into the back of a black Escalade, carefully stuffing the voluminous fabric of my skirt in with me before the door shuts with a solid “clunk!” that tells me this sucker is bulletproof.
We’re silent as the car pulls away, heading into traffic. For once, he’s not staring at his phone, but worse, he’s staring at me.
“You handled the ceremony very well,” he said, running his finger over his full lips and reminding me of that kiss at the altar.
“Thank you?”
The momentary warmth is gone. “What did Katya say to you?”
I thought about evading the question, but I was too tired and strung out to care. “She said you were going to tear me in half, and when you were tired of me, you’d give me to her father for their whorehouses. And she’d make me watch her have sex with you before she had me raped by all their soldiers.” Looking up, I was instantly sorry for being honest. Maksim’s face was shaped into a mask of cold fury. Naturally, my big mouth had to open again. “The family whorehouse is definitely a thing with her. Though the word family would make you think something more wholesome than whorehouse would follow.”
“What do you mean,” his words were precisely shaped and furious, “it is a ‘thing’ with her?”
I’m about to rub my eyes before remembering all the mascara caked on my lashes. “She was in the SUV today when I got out of Hellspa - I mean, spa day. Lurch put me in there and left to get my purse.”
“Lurch?”
“I don’t know his real name, the giant bald dude with a tattoo of a snake on his neck? She locked the doors and pulled a gun on me. She started off with the whole ‘I usually put people I don’t like in our whorehouse,’ and finished off with trying to make me take a bag of cash and get out of town, or she’d shoot me…”
I rubbed my eyes, ignoring the mess I’d made, “and paralyze me, and- Look, it doesn’t matter. Lurch broke the window with his gun and yelled at me for locking the door, and when I turned around, she was gone.” He had a muscle tic’ing in his cheek, teeth clenched. “Your ex-girlfriend’s a trip. She didn’t take our happy news very well, huh? Why didn’t you marry her? You two seem like a perfect match.” I knew I was provoking him and I just didn’t care.
“I knew she was insane, but- she isn’t my ex-girlfriend, I would never be with someone as unstable as Katya, I am… sorry. She will never get near you again.” Maksim actually looked regretful, which was an expression I’d never expected to see on his face.
“Then why did she get so hysterical at the fundraiser that night?” I decided if he was going to be remorseful, I was taking advantage of that.
“Bratva families usually intermarry for business reasons, to strengthen ties between families, create an alliance. Women are raised with the expectation that they will be used to make an advantageous match. I knew her father was going to attempt to make an alliance between our families.”
“You-“ I had never been so angry. I thought I might have burst a blood vessel in my eye because I actually had a red haze over my vision. “You destroyed my life because I was in the wrong place at the right time for your use?”
Maksim raised an elegant brow. He looked composed now, and amazing in his perfect tux. The sheer… I was just…
“You need to breathe.” He put one big, warm hand on my abdomen and I scooted back as far as the seat would let me.
“Don’t touch me! You did this to me! I don’t even have to worry about you killing Tania, or- or- or my brother. Because she’s going to sink me in the Hudson River, and I…” Damn him, he was right, I put a hand on my chest, wheezing. This gown had a corset that they’d laced tight enough to make my ribs fold in like the legs on a card table. When I tried to suck in more air, the corset seemed to tighten.
“Ella, look at me, darling. You’re hyperventilating, breathe in and out slowly, we’ve done this together before. Breathe in…” I could feel him push me forward and unzip my dress, pulling on the corset strings to unlace them. “Breathe out… I’ve got you. Breathe in…”
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on a bed, it was a small room, with low lighting and the strong drone of an engine.
