Page 82 of The Tsar's Obsession
The seconds ticked, and I descended further and further into aspiral of all the wrong choices I thought I had made. Bitter tears poured down my cheeks once I slumped back on the bed, all of me shuddering with the severity of what I’d just found out.
I thought back to Christmas and how talented Kirill had been at presenting an image my father wanted to see. He was a phenomenal actor, a master manipulator. He played me like a fucking fiddle. Bursting into my life, he usurped all my attention and energy, hungrily feasting on all of me, trapping me, and presenting me with a mirage.
Hewas the mirage. Was it all a façade? How could he look into my eyes and tell me I was the only one in his life—the love of his life—if he could do something like that to my friend, to me?!
I didn’t want to have any conversations about it. I didn’t want to forgive. I knew that there was only one correct choice. I looked around the home we shared and realized that nothing here was really mine. It was allours.And I wanted nothing to do with him anymore.
I dropped the chain in the pocket of my trench coat, grabbed my purse, and walked out to my driver.
"Take me to see him!" I almost barked at Ilya, the man who had been my driver for months, but to my dismay, he began protesting, stirring the fury inside me even further. “Take me to fucking see him, or I will shoot you with your own gun! Go! Now!”
Jarred at my own words, I knew that I would never have spoken this way in the past. Kirill had changed me.
The young man put up his hands as if to say he capitulated and started the car. With every passing mile, my wrath increased. Every second brought me closer to the end. Memories of our time together swirled inside my mind, a new one playing every few seconds. Everything we’d lived through. Everything! He lied through it all!
A mere half hour later, Ilya pulled into a small alleyway in Harlem, the building nondescript and bland. I’d never been here before, and now it all made sense. Of course, why would Kirillshare that part of his life with me? Just another secret, just another tidbit to leave out.
The little iron plaque beside the front door read:Feldman & Feldman & Associates, Barristers & Solicitors.
Barristers, my ass.
With all the strength that I could muster under the circumstances, I pulled and then pushed on the door, finding it locked. Unsurprisingly. So, I found his name in my ‘favorite’ contacts. The only name there. The ringtone echoed in my ear as if from underground.
“Sunshine?”
“Come see me downstairs, Kirill.”
My voice shook, but he responded with silence, evidently clueing in that this was not a harmless drop-by. Within a minute, Kirill’s large frame appeared in the doorway as he swung the door open, his eyes blazing with concern. There he was, the man I loved, the man who hurt me so irrevocably.
"Baby, what's wrong? Are you okay?! What are you doing here? What happened?" Kirill fired off questions and looked me over quickly. He looked so troubled. Oh, he fucking better be worried.
"Won't you invite me in?" My fake smile was threatening to turn into a scowl. "Or is this another part of your life that you don't want to show me?"
Kirill’s face sank, and so did my heart. He knew there was something that I must have found out about his life that he didn’t want to show me, and he was scared to reveal it. His reaction stabbed me even deeper in the heart.
Instead of inviting me in, he led me onto the sidewalk where the spring sun shone brightly on us. Kirill’s white button-down shirt looked crisp on his huge body, and his brown locks tossed with every gust of wind. He was just as handsome as ever. But no longer mine.
"What is it?" All his attention on me, his voice was heavy with anxiety.
"What a great question! I have a similar one: what isthis?" I pulled the chain out of my pocket and held it up for him to see.
Only a momentary glance was enough for him to recognize it. Kirill squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away, whispering a desperate, "Fuck." Yes, he most definitely knew what this was. And he certainly knew what it would do to our relationship if I found out. I stood on the sidewalk, all of me beginning to shake, but I waited. Waited to see what he would do next and how he was going to dig himself out of this grave.
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm so sorry I didn't tell you. This is a long story–"
"Everything is a long story with you!" I shouted in his face, and he flinched. “Everything is hard to explain!" I could have physically charged at him in this moment. "Youlied to me.How could you–" I couldn’t even finish the sentence; it was too much, too painful. Tears burst from my eyes. Uncontrollable.
"I was going to tell you, okay? I just couldn't find the right time," he called out to me quietly and took a few steps closer.
The right time?!
"He had to havereconstructive nose and teethsurgery, Kirill! His shoulder was dislocated, he had broken ribs, he was on morphine for weeks! How could you do this?! What the fuck?! What the fuck were you thinking?! Why,whywould you do this to him?!"
I was out of control. I couldn’t stop yelling, I couldn’t stop crying. I was so incredibly distraught and broken. How, how could he do this?!
Not having the balls to look me in the eyes, he reached out to grab my hands, but I ripped them out of his grasp at once.
“Don't you fucking dare touch me! You will never touch me again! You're a fucking psychopath! And a liar! And I'm the biggest idiot in the world because I fell for you!” My entire body shook with my sobs, and it was both cathartic and gut-wrenching. Ari’s chain was still in my hands, a bright reminder of Kirill’s crime.
