Page 51 of Destined for the Devil
One man, Roman...
The realization hit me like a moving train. I tried to breathe from the shock, but the pain in my chest was sharp and violent. Was Sergei fucking responsible for what happened to my sister? The seed was planted by Claudio, and now it bloomed into a full-out fucking panic attack.
I knew Sergei liked Natasha. And I also knew she never gave him the time of day, never took him seriously, never paid him any real attention. He used to joke that he would marry her one day, and he morphed into a different man when she was around—flirty and mellow.
When did that start?
Very early on. Like me, he was five years older than her. He would tell me thousands of times what a great sister I had.
Your sister is great.
Natasha is such a good girl.
Are you inviting Natasha?
Will Natasha be around?
Let’s hang out with Natasha, make sure she comes too.
She’s so funny.
She’s so innocent.
She’s adorable.
She’s such a smart woman.
She has such a pure smile.
She’s such a grown-up now.
She, she, she, she.
And it intensified right before he left to go to Russia when he was nineteen and she was…fourteen.I never picked up on the fact that he could have been dangerous. I always thought he was just being playful with my little sister, that he loved her like I loved her—like a brother.
"What is it, Roman?" Isla interrupted my mental gymnastics, but I couldn't say anything.
Had Natasha ever told me she felt uncomfortable with him? God, I tried to think back to all those years ago. Sergei was destroyed after her death. He bawled at her funeral, his deep sorrow mirroring mine. It couldn't be him then! He was so devastated when we lost her.
I was grasping at straws, I thought.
But then I also remembered that it washimwho was absolutely hellbent on finding out who was responsible. In fact, he was so adamant about it, he spent more time on it than I did...or so I thought. What was Denis doing? Denis was just around. He didn't really speak about it, but he didn’t know her very well.
Sergei wasalwaysaround. When we were young, when my mom passed, when Natasha went to university. Denis was just a friend; he never really came over or spent any time with her. But Sergei was aclosefriend. A close friend who was here when Natasha passed, while Denis and I were on vacation in the Caribbean. Sergei. Was. Here.
Did he…destroy her life because she didn't want him?
Holy fucking shit.
Nausea crept up my chest, cutting off all oxygen. My face blazed, and I was about to keel over when Isla hopped off me, giving me room to breathe. I folded over my knees, staring at the floor and forcing myself to remember the details.
Sergei came back from the Russian army a changed man. He always played with boundaries, but after those years he was broken, as if he had PTSD. He became pitiless. Rough and explosive, he was belligerent toward everyone.
He said he wanted to forget it all, to have a family and a normal life, but it was obvious that he was fucked in the head.
When did he start dating Lena, the woman who became his wife? Almost immediately after Natasha passed away. And proposed within a few months. And Lena got pregnant before the wedding even happened. And that was that—he got hisnormallife and family.
Before I processed my actions, I was already rushing toward my closet, looking for the box that had a few of Natasha’s belongings. Her phone—there must have been something I missed. I threw the top off the box, tears at my eyes just from the memories.
