Page 94 of Vengeful Vows

I can’t be in the same room with Mara and not itch to touch her. It is an impossible task. Even drunk and belligerent, I could barely hold back the urge Friday night. I remained holed up in the bathroom for not even thirty seconds before I sprinted for the exit.

If the elevator had made it to the underground garage fast enough, I would have stopped Mara from leaving that night. Then I would have fallen to my knees and begged for forgiveness, and all the work my team has been undertaking for the past several days would have been pointless.

This has nothing to do with my political campaign, and everything to do with the woman I fell in love with on sight.

Needing to get my head into game mode, I gesture, with the hand not stuffed in my pocket, for Detective Pascall to sit at one of the chairs around the conference room table.

“Please, call me Sanya.”

She flashes me credentials to assure me that I’m speaking with a professional before she takes a seat and removes a notepad from the breast pocket of her jacket.

“Water?” I ask, attempting to display I’m not the slightest bit nervous about our meeting.

When she shakes her head, I fill one glass before taking a seat opposite her.

“If this is in regard to an increase in media presence over the past three weeks, I can assure you my department is implementing measures to reduce the disruption to residents in the building as we speak.”

“It isn’t regarding that.” I speak with a professional edge that gives no indication I am affiliated with gangsters. “But I’ll be sure to pass your message on to Mr. Ivanov the next time I speak with him.”

Maksim Ivanov is a gangster in every meaning of the word. He also owns a majority of the apartments in my building. We met once, but it was too brief to determine how indebted he is to Mara, and if that debt would transfer to me if it were in Mara’s best interests. But I’m not opposed to tossing his name into the ring if it’ll make the flames less scorching.

“Then what is our meeting regarding?” It is an effort for her to keep disdain from her voice when she says, “I have criminals to catch.”

Her innuendo has a double meaning, and I’m done pretending it doesn’t.

“I am a private man, Ms. Pascall. If someone wants to know something about me, I prefer a direct approach.”

Unwillingly, my eyes stray to the two-way mirror.

Mara thinks our downfall is because she pushed for answers. I know that isn’t close to the truth. Her ability to disarm me is one of her greatest assets.

“I do not appreciate when my privacy and the privacy of those closest to me are blatantly disrespected.” I was standing in front of a large contingency of media, preparing to announce my forfeit of the presidential race, when Darius announced there was a detective snooping around the premises, asking questions about Mara.

“It isDetectivePascall,” Sanya snaps out, impressing me with her gall. “And I’ve been trying to approach you for almost two weeks now. My calls have been left unanswered, hence me needing to dig a little deeper.”

She has me there, but I act coy. “I will be sure to have a word with my secretary.”

“Thank you.” She smiles evilly before flipping her interrogation on its head. “What is your involvement with Miskaela Palkova?”

“Who?” I reply, acting daft.

It is all an act. Dr. Babkin’s name was revealed by Mara an hour after I was handed a list of his victims’ names by a reporter who had been sold information on Mara’s previous name. He couldn’t run the story because Mara was underage when she was abused and, as such, is protected by strict victim laws.

The reporter’s intel suggested there could be recordings of Dr. Babkin’s “sessions” with his victims, but confirmation was only achieved when I left Mara’s apartment with the full intention of returning as soon as possible.

Mara wasn’t much older than Tillie when her speech therapist added a hands-on approach to their twice-weekly sessions. At the start, it was an innocent finger slip while showing Mara how to hold her tongue while speaking. It took a couple of years for him to progress to more risqué moves.

As Mara hinted last week, the abuse didn’t truly start until Dr. Babkin approached her family outside of office hours.

In the footage I watched, he was quick to assure Mara what they were doing was approved by her father whenever she questioned him.

“Remember, your father gave me permission to doanythingnecessary to stop your silly stutter.”

I stopped watching from then. The damage to my psyche had already been done, but some good came from the travesty. I no longer need proof that Mara can trust me with Tillie. The evidence was right in front of me.

I didn’t see Mara in that footage. I saw Tillie, and every sly look Dr. Babkin hit her with had me desperate to dig him up and revive him just so I could kill him again.

I’ve never wanted to hurt a man as much as I did in the seconds leading to Rafael switching off the footage and sending Darius’s laptop sailing across the cab of my town car, and I was given the chance to do precisely that only hours later.

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