Page 90 of The Pakhan's Arranged Bride
“It smells like you,” she muses.
She might be in shock.It might be why she’s handling this so well. She was looking right at Miron when he died. That asshole even tried to say his last words to her—with a knife pushed straight through his tongue and into his skull, he still thought he could speak to her.
“Ulyana, it’s okay if you’re not okay,” I say, worried about her.
She smiles again and shakes her head.
“You don’t get it. Maybe I don’t either—but right now I feel like someone lifted the weight of the world off my shoulders.You. You did it. I feel light and happy and—free.” She closes her eyes for a moment and scrunches her nose, tilting her head back as though she was enjoying a summer breeze on her cheeks.
“But you just saw a man die,” I argue. “I’ve seen men die, and I know a particularly brutal death when it happens—" I clear my throat, swallowing hard. That was a fucking brutal death. It was really horrific. I snapped his spine. The agony was all over his face. I could have left it at that, but I still pushed that knife through his skull.
She looks down at my hand on her leg and shakes her head.
She threads her fingers through mine, holding my hand tight, squeezing it as though she wants to comfort me, to let me know she’s really okay despite everything.
When she looks at me, her eyes are cold, but deadly serious.
“That wasn’t a man, Benedikt. That was a monster. And that monster got exactly what he deserved.”
***
At home, I run Ulyana a hot bubble bath, pouring almost half the bottle of bubbles into it along with two cups of Epsom salts.
She can tell me she’s alright, but at some point, the shock of it all is going to wear off and her emotions are going to crash in on her. I will be here when that happens. I will be here for her, and I will help her find her way back to herself.
I will hold her through every moment of it.
I get that she believes she’s happy about his being gone. But watching a man die—that leaves a scar on your soul. It reaches deep into you and steals a part of you.
Or maybe it’s because I am the killer.
I don’t feel bad about killing him, though.
Maybe that’s what I’m not getting. The same way I would kill him again—she would want to watch him die again. To have that confirmation. To watch his pain after the years of pain he’s caused her.
Maybe, after all of this, she really is okay.
Ulyana is right about him, though. He wasn’t a man, he was a monster, and he got what he deserved. I would do it again, given half the chance.
“The water is really hot,” I warn her as she lets her clothes drop to the floor, standing next to the bath, naked and beautiful. My eyes trace over her body, noticing the bruises painted on her smooth skin.
I clench my jaw, my shoulders tensing.
She knits her brows and follows my gaze to see the bruises on her arms, and her hip.
She touches the blue marks gently, not flinching. She smiles again, taking me by surprise.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” I ask her.
“This is all I walked away with. I consider myself incredibly lucky, Ben. It could have been so much—and it wasn’t. Because I had you watching out for me.”
She steps over the edge of the bath and shudders as the hot water touches her foot.
“Too hot?” I ask, reaching for her.
“No, it’s perfect.” My eyes don’t leave her as she sinks slowly into the bubbles, letting them engulf her.
My wife is strong. She is as strong as she is beautiful.
