Page 73 of Never Distract a Biker

"Stay alive, Scarlett," I think again, the mantra fueling every cell of my body. "I'm coming."

34

Scarlett

I stare at her, wide-eyed, my mind racing to connect the dots that have led to this surreal moment. My mouth opens and closes, but words fail me, treacherously sticking to the roof of my mouth as if they too are afraid of what speaking them could bring.

Marina's lips curve into a smirk, cold and knowing. Her eyes hold mine, a spark of triumph—or is it malice?—flickering in their depths. The silence stretches between us, loaded with unspoken accusations and the heavy weight of betrayal.

The room feels like it's closing in on me as Marina strides closer, the click of her heels against the concrete floor echoing like a metronome counting down my last moments of innocence. Her involvement is a betrayal that stings sharper than any wound, a jagged tear through the fabric of our shared history.

Why? The question pulses through my mind with the ache of a fresh bruise. Marina, my confidante, the one who knew every secret crevice of my life—we survived university together, weathered storms of uncertainty, and clung to each other when life tried to sweep us away. I close my eyes for a heartbeat, remembering how she has helped me land that stripping gig when desperation clawed at my door. I’ve always thought her to be my best friend.

"Marina," I whisper, the name tasting like a betrayal on my tongue. It's a plea, a prayer for this to be some grotesque misunderstanding. My voice trembles as I force my gaze back to hers, searching for a flicker of the girl I thought I knew. "Why?"

She meets my stare with a cool detachment that sends shivers skating across my skin. There's no flinch of remorse, no quiver in her posture to suggest any semblance of the warmth we once shared. Instead, she brushes off my agony with the ease of someone swatting away an insignificant fly.

"Scarlett," she says, her voice holding none of the comfort it used to offer in our late-night heart-to-hearts. She moves toward me with deliberate steps, her hips swaying rhythmically, a serpent charmer ready to strike. Every inch she closes between us tightens the knot of dread in my stomach.

I brace myself for her words, for whatever revelation might spill from those lips that have twisted into something cruel and foreign. Marina holds my gaze, unwavering, and begins to speak.

"Viktor's father," she begins, her voice slicing through the thick tension, "he had my mother for twelve years. Twelve years as nothing more than a kept woman." There's a venom in Marina's words that makes me flinch. The air between us is charged with her resentment, and I can almost see the bitterness emanating from her like heat from the sun-scorched pavement.

I try to reconcile this revelation with the Marina I knew—the one who laughed too loud and hugged too tight. The contrast is stark and chilling. "He never married her," she continues, and there is a furious glint in her eyes, "never gave her, or me, the dignity we deserved."

The room seems to close in around me as she speaks, each word heavy with the weight of shattered dreams. "I was just a child, Scarlett. Twelve when Igor Makarov waltzed into our lives." Marina's hands ball into fists at her sides, and I'm struck by the image of a little girl wrapped up in fantasies of grandeur. "I thought he would make her his wife, make me his princess."

My heart aches for her, for the innocence lost, but I'm frozen in place, my predicament momentarily forgotten. Marina's face twists, the corners of her mouth turning down, her eyes darkening as if clouds are passing over them. "But dreams," she spits out the word as if it tastes foul, "are for the naive."

Watching her now, it's clear that any semblance of that hopeful child has been devoured by the woman standing in front of me—a woman forged by disappointment and anger, a woman who sees me not as a friend, but as an embodiment of everything she's been denied. And I realize, with a sinking feeling, that there's no going back to who we once were.

Marina paces before me, her heels clicking on the concrete floor like a metronome counting down to an inevitable end. Her voice rises and falls with the cadence of one reciting a well-rehearsed story that’s carved deep grooves in her being.

"His daughters' luxurious lifestyles," she sneers, her lips curling. "Every time I entered their mansion, it was like stepping into a fairy tale—one where I was the overlooked Cinderella, and his daughters the queens." Marina pauses, a sarcastic laugh bubbling up. "I used to imagine myself draped in silks instead of cotton, diamonds instead of glass. I believed I deserved that life, Scarlett."

She stops pacing and turns, her gaze piercing through me. The memory seems to hover around her, a ghostly shroud whispering of what could have been. "My mother wore love like a blindfold, thinking it would turn into a crown. And I, foolishly, waited with her."

I watch her swallow hard as if pushing down the bile of her disillusionment. "But when nothing came of it, I asked my mother about it. I dared to question our future, our supposed ascent to royalty."

Her hands clench at her sides. "She just hushed me, as if my words were dangerous secrets. As if my ambition was something to be ashamed of."

The room grows colder with each revelation, and I find myself shivering, not from the temperature but from the chill of betrayal that seeps from Marina's every word.

"Next thing I knew, I was shipped off across the world, to a boarding school in the States." She laughs again, but there's no humor in it—just a sharp edge that cuts through the air. "The holidays became a farce. My mother would take me on trips, distracting me with travels, keeping me away from the Makarovs as if I was lesser than them."

Marina looks away, staring at a point beyond the walls of this dreary place. "Eventually, I stopped going back. What was there to go back to? A shadow of a family? A love that existed only in our heads?"

Her story hangs between us, a tapestry of pain and abandonment, woven with threads of bitterness and loss. I can't help but feel the echoes of that little girl's longing, even as the woman before me stands shrouded in resentment.

"America became my refuge and my prison," Marina whispers, almost to herself. "A land of opportunity where I was free to forget and condemned to remember."

And in her tone, I hear the finality of a door closed long ago, the resignation of dreams turned to dust. Marina has revealed more than just her past; she has borne the roots of her anger, and in them, I see the twisted reflection of my fears.

Marina's voice seethes with venom, a black river of loathing that chokes the air around us. "The Makarovs," she hisses, "they took everything. My mother's love, her life, my childhood dreams—all casualties of Igor's selfish desires. He could've made her his wife, given me the legitimacy and status I deserved as his daughter.Instead, he rejected me, and I watched his daughters live like monarchs."

A cold silence settles over the room after Marina's outburst. Her chest heaves, each breath a testament to the depth of her hatred. The revelation stuns me; it paints every memory of our shared past in a stark, new light.

I find my voice, though it trembles like a leaf in a storm. "But what has all this got to do with me? Why make me suffer for a history that has nothing to do with me?" My question hangs between us, a plea for some semblance of reason within this madness.

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