Page 24 of Paved in Hate

“Where’s your sketchpad?”

I point to the bag sitting in the corner. He goes and gets it and then sets it on the bed next to me.

“Need anything else?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m about to call your brothers for a meeting, and you need to stay off your damn feet.”

“Right, my brothers,” I say, settling back against the pillows, “to discuss the business that you all share.”

Ignoring the angry look he gives me, I click on the TV and start scrolling to see what I can stream. I shouldn’t push him, but part of me wants to know what will happen when he gets really pissed. At some point, he’s going to have to drop the nice guy mask. I need to know what kind of monster he is. If I don’t know my boundaries, then I’ll never be able to survive this. With my brothers I knew exactly what to do and what not to do, but with Vitaly I have no idea, and it’s driving me crazy.

Before he walks away, a moment of pure panic hits me when I realize what I might’ve just done. Here I’m all alone, and I just need to worry about getting my own ass in trouble, but if my brothers think that I’m being anything but the perfect wife they want me to be, then it won’t be me that pays the price.

“Wait,” I quickly say, reaching out to grab his wrist. His eyes widen slightly in surprise, but he doesn’t pull away, probably because of the death grip I have on him. “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“For talking back and being willful and for not doing anything last night.”

He studies me for a few seconds, and I’ve never felt so much like I was under a microscope. I swear he can read every damn thought that’s going through my very confused mind.

“What made you say that?”

“It just hit me what an ass I was being.”

He lets out a soft laugh. “Nice try. You want to tell me the truth now?”

I sigh while I debate how much truth to give him. “Can I ask something of you?”

“Depends on what it is.”

My fingers still grip his wrist when I meet his eyes and say, “If you’re ever upset with me about anything, will you give me your word that you’ll just punish me for it?” When he doesn’t say anything, I quickly add, “I promise I won’t complain or try to fight back or anything, just please don’t tell my brothers.”

After several very awkward seconds of silence, he shakes his head and says, “I don’t even know what in the fuck to say to that. You told me your brothers never hurt you, but they hurt someone else, didn’t they?”

When I don’t say anything, he places his hand on top of mine. The scarred palm is oddly reassuring, but I still can’t seem to loosen my grip.

“I meant what I said last night. Our marriage is not their business,ptichka. They won’t hear any details from me. As far as punishing you goes,” he pauses and gives a soft shake of his head again, “I will never hurt you. I can’t force you to believe me, but you have my word that no harm will ever come to you while you’re my wife, and I’m sure as fuck not going to hurt someone else if I get angry with you.”

Reaching out, he very lightly brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m not angry at you, by the way. I never was.”

He doesn’t give me a chance to respond. His fingers graze the skin of my cheek in a featherlight touch that leaves my heart racing as he pulls back and out of my grasp. He’s out the door before I can even think to say anything.

Tossing the remote aside, I close my eyes and try to relax. My life has felt like it’s been spinning out of control since I was twelve years old, and I’ve managed to survive that, so I sure as fuck can survive being married to a gorgeous man who confuses me at every turn.

With my mind racing like it is, there’s only one thing I can do to calm it. I grab my bag and pull out the smaller sketchpad, the one I always keep hidden, the one I fill with all the drawings that I don’t ever want anyone else to see. After Konstantin made me watch him kill a woman, I knew I would lose my mind if I didn’t have an outlet, if I didn’t have something that allowed me to get out everything that I was feeling, so I started drawing all the things that played in a repeating loop in my mind, threatening to drive me insane. I’ve filled several of these smaller pads over the years, and when I reach for the most recent one, my chest starts to feel a little lighter.

This is my therapy, the only thing in my life that’s ever made me feel truly happy, and I need it now more than I ever have. Grabbing my charcoal pencils, I flip to a blank page and start drawing. With the first stroke, I feel my body relax. A pleasant numbing sensation settles over me and I gladly give in to it, losing myself to everything except the dark lines taking shape on the page before me. I’m not at all surprised that it’s Vitaly’s face I’ve chosen to draw. I capture the way he’d looked when he was bandaging my feet, the concern and worry in his beautiful eyes and the way his full lips had been stretched into a tight line. When I’m finished, I keep going. I draw the way he looks when he smiles, the beautiful tattooed hands that make my breath catch in my throat every time he touches me with them, and the way he’d looked this morning when I’d woken up to find him sleeping in the rocking chair.

By the time I set the sketchpad aside, my hand aches and I feel lighter somehow. Nothing’s changed, nothing has been resolved, but I feel better after getting him down on paper. The soft knock at the door has me shoving the pad back in my bag and grabbing the bigger one that has all my bird drawings.

“Yeah?” I ask, looking over when the door opens and Emily pokes her head in.

“Hey, I just wanted to check on you and make sure you’re okay.”

She takes a cautious step inside, and when I see Simona and Jolene hovering in the doorway, I smile and wave them in. “I’m okay.”

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