Page 27 of Beautiful Monster

Tears prick at my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. Not in front of him. Not when he's looking at me like I'm something he wants to erase. "You're lying."

"Am I?" He sets down his glass with deliberate care and stalks toward me. I should run, but I'm frozen as he stops, just close enough that I can smell his cologne and feel the heatradiating from his body. "You want to know where I've been, Kira? Cleaning up the mess your father left behind. Dealing with the Novikovs who think our marriage makes us weak. Trying to keep us both alive."

His voice drops to a whisper, raising goosebumps along my arms. "That night was a mistake. It made me forget what you are—a liability I can't afford to care about."

The word "liability" burns through me like acid. I take a step back, then another, my bare feet retreating across the cool marble. Something inside me cracks open, spilling all the vulnerability I've tried so desperately to contain.

"A liability," I repeat, the words tasting bitter on my tongue. "Is that all I am to you?"

He doesn't answer, just watches me with those ice-blue eyes that gave away so much that night and now reveal nothing. The space between us feels infinite, unbridgeable.

"I understand." My voice is steady, though my insides tremble. "Thank you for the clarity."

I turn away before he can see what's written plainly across my face. Pride is all I have left now, and I cling to it as I walk toward the door, each step measured and deliberate despite the chaos inside me.

"Kira." My name in his mouth still makes something twist painfully in my chest. I pause but don't turn. "Where are you going?"

"To be a liability somewhere else," I say quietly.

Back in my room—not ours—I lock the door behind me and press my forehead against the cool wood. Tears threaten, but I swallow them down. Crying won't solve anything. It never has.

I move to the window, pushing aside heavy curtains to stare out at the moonlit grounds of the estate. Guards patrol the perimeter, their shadows cutting across manicured lawns.

My reflection stares back at me, superimposed over the night-darkened landscape. I barely recognize myself anymore. Five days ago, I believed something real had sparked between us.

Five days of silence taught me otherwise.

Chapter 12

Mikhail

Iwatch her retreat to her room, the soft click of the lock an accusation that echoes through the hollow space between us. My fingers tighten around the empty glass until I fear it might shatter in my grip. The vodka burns in my throat, but it doesn't numb the ache spreading through my chest.

Liability. The word hangs in the air, poisonous and necessary.

I pour another drink, downing it in one harsh swallow. The grandfather clock ticks relentlessly in the corner, marking each second she spends behind that locked door, each moment I spend standing here, paralyzed by my own cruelty.

Five days. Five days of deliberately avoiding Kira's touch, her gaze, her very presence. Five days of leaving before dawn and returning after midnight, of showering away her scent, of lying beside her rigid body in the dark, every muscle straining not to reach for her.

Five days of absolute fucking torture.

And yet, my mind betrays me, replaying that night in vivid detail—her skin flushed beneath my hands, her breath catching as I entered her, the way she whispered as she unraveled in my arms. The trust in her eyes as she gave herself to me completely.

Trust I've now shattered.

"Fuck," I mutter to myself. I should never have touched her. Should never have allowed myself that one night of forgetting who I am, what I've done, and what awaits us both if I falter. Alina is gone because I made the mistake of loving my wife too openly, of treating her as more than the political alliance she represented.

I will not make the same mistake twice.

Yet, as I climb the stairs to the east wing, my feet carry me not to my room but to her door. I stand outside, listening. No sound comes from within—no sobbing, no movement. Just silence––as absolute as the space I've forced between us.

My hand rises and hovers near the polished wood. One knock and I could undo the damage. I could tell her that the coldness is an act, that I've been distant because the alternative terrifies me more than any enemy ever could.

But then what? Hold her close only to have her ripped away? Watch her bleed out in my arms while I stand helpless, destroyed not just by her death but by the knowledge that I caused it?

No. Better Kira hate me and live than love me and die.

My hand falls away from the door. I retreat to my study, pour another drink, and lose myself in work until dawn bleeds across the horizon.

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