Page 93 of Devil's Vows
“Gabriella—”
“It’s okay, I’m okay. He just… He just reminds me of someone I met once, when I was younger. The tattoos, his eyes… I don’t know.” She glances up and down the corridor, trying to orient herself, but avoiding my eyes. “I should be in bed. Why am I not in bed? The girls…nobody is with the girls!”
With all the security in the house, she still doesn’t feel they’re safe? What triggered her this time round, and that with the Pakhan, too?
She rushes down the corridor, frazzled. I follow with wide strides in her wake, stunned that Papa reminded her of someone she met once before…what the fuck? Does she mean another Russian? Or an old man on the way to his grave?
I take the stairs two at a time, but she’s faster, running up the stairs, her robe dragging along.
By the time I’ve caught up with her, still chewing on her over-reaction, she’s at my bed, on her knees, deep in prayer, chest heaving with suppressed sobs as she clings to the golden cross necklace.
Fuck. And what the hell?
The girls are there, exactly as we’ve left them. I pad over, resting my hand gently on her head, wanting only to comfort her, but she rears away.
“No, please.”
She doesn’t look up. Doesn’t meet my eyes. She holds out a hand to ward me off.
And it breaks me. Doesn’t she trust me? Must be a serious bout of cold feet.
I get it, and it’s fine. Everything is so rushed.
Could be much more than that, but my head refuses to think with her like this, on her knees.
Trust. I want to build this thing on trust. We still have some way to go.
My little bird gets a few more hours.
47
GABI
When I wake up, the bed is empty. From the thin streaks of light coming from the shutters, it’s already late. I hardly slept. I cup my hands to my face to breathe, warding off the panic attack that threatened to engulf me the whole night. I have no clue how I managed to drift off.
I’m not sure I was even on the bed when I fell asleep. The last time I was fully aware, I was still on my knees, praying.
I struggle upright, light-headed with exhaustion. It’s nine-thirty in the morning.
My wedding day.
I strangle a sob.
And all I can see in my mind’s eyes are the old Pakhan’s hands, the tattoos on his fingers. The same ones that are shadows on Yuri’s fingers now, only visible if you really look for them. All I hear is the slurred Russian he spoke. His blue eye and drooping lid that wouldn’t open. His mouth.
Thatmouth.
It isn’t him, but the connection is there. The tattoos are a carbon copy.
Some things are just branded on your mind, a timeline offocus points you can never wipe away. Images that will flash by in your mind’s eye just before you die.
The old Pakhan, Yuri, andmy Russian.All interconnected
And then there’s Chiara. The worry over her is cement constantly churning in my stomach.
My phone blinks with a new message and I reach for it.
Good luck for today. Will still fetch you at a minute’s notice if you don’t want to go through with the wedding,Dominic writes, and he is still typing.
