A MONTH LATER
It never gets any easier.
Not the part about watching from afar.
Or the part about going to an empty home without her.
Or the part where Jeremy asks me when his mother is coming back.
I tell myself it’s for her sake, for her mental health, and to kill whatever reason she had for jumping off the cliff.
I tell myself that she’ll remember me, that she’ll one day recognize Yan, then tell him to take her home.
Hasn’t happened so far.
If anything, she seems to be more invested in her fake life as Winter.
I hate that fucking name and the woman behind it who’s still comatose in my guest house. If Lia hadn’t met her, she wouldn’t have jumped off that cliff and we wouldn’t be here.
Though, it was probably only a matter of time before Lia attempted her escape. Meeting Winter was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, not the first.
What I hate the most about this situation are the conditions she’s living in. My Lenochka isn’t supposed to sleep in shelters or on the streets. She shouldn’t be wearing charity clothes and torn gloves.
She shouldn’t be homeless.
Her home is with me and Jeremy.
Every day, I battle the urge to whisk her up and take her with me, to drive her to our house where she was always meant to be.
Something stops me, though.
The change in her.
Unlike before, Lia’s often smiling now and even laughing with Yan—or Larry, as she knows him. Watching her interactions with him give me different urges, like strangling the life out of him.
I don’t like that she laughs with him yet doesn’t even remember me. I hate that she bonded with him in no time but had only panic attacks when I was by her side at the hospital.
But at the same time, I like that she’s more carefree, that her demons aren’t getting the better of her.
Yan also mentioned that she hasn’t had a single nightmare since the day she became homeless.
A few weeks ago, I had Emily, one of our department store managers, give Lia a makeover while she was on sleeping pills. The store manager changed my wife to look like the pictures of Winter we found on surveillance cameras. When she woke up in the hospital, I had a different doctor than Putin discharge her in case she remembered any details from the past and recalled his face.
Lia didn’t have any trouble believing she was Winter or adapting to her life, as if it had always been her own. It could be because she was used to being around the homeless due to the amount of volunteering she took part in.
She did mention once that they were free.
I never forgot her expression from back then, the sadness in it, and how much her eyes shone with a secret yearning for that freedom.
That night, I made up an excuse to spank her, to punish her for ever thinking about leaving me. Then I fucked her like a madman as if intending to purge that idea out of her head.
But deep down, I recognized that she believed in it. In fact, she probably buried it in her subconscious until this moment.
Being homeless is akin to freedom to her.
Kolya stops the car at the back of the shelter she stays in and we wait. My second-in-command retrieves his phone, probably to check on the hackers’ emails. Boris opens and closes his cigarette pack but doesn’t light one.
I sit in the back seat, my whole attention zeroed in on the door of the shelter. Every time someone exits and it’s not her, my stomach falls with a pungent type of disappointment.
When she comes out, I feel her before seeing her. It’s a strange connection that I didn’t realize I had with her until the day she fell from that cliff.
I shake that gruesome image out of my head as I focus on her. She’s gotten thinner, but her features are still the same—soft, delicate, and so beautiful.
She’s still the fragile rose I want to shield from the world, lure her into mine, and swallow her in my darkness.
Lia shoves her hands in her coat and hurries down the street, probably to get a beer and get drunk.
I motion at Boris. “Follow her.”
“Yes, Boss.” He opens the passenger door and steps out, keeping his distance as he trails her from afar.
My attention remains on her until she rounds the corner with Boris on her tail.
I’ll probably join him after I talk to Yan. To say I’ve been neglecting my work these past couple of weeks would be an understatement.
I can’t focus on anything when Lia is fucking gone. In the past, I was used to watching her in the garden or knowing she was somewhere at home, safe and sound. Now that she’s not there, my mind feels scattered and I can’t get anything done.
Though I have to. In order to keep protecting her and Jeremy, I need to be on top of things and not let anything slip past me.
The back seat opens and Yan slides to my side, smelling of trash. He rubs his nose with his dirty gloves and retrieves a cigarette.
He looks like shit.
But he doesn’t seem to mind as long as he gets to protect Lia.
Kolya’s ex-colleague did wonders on Yan’s features. Not only did he make him look a few decades older, but he also changed his face map in a way that gives him a completely different appearance.
Yan is currently Larry, an ex-veteran who has high cheekbones and graying hair.
He’s always by Lia’s side unless he needs to touch up on his disguise, and that’s when either Boris, Kolya, or I keep an eye on her from afar.
Sometimes I watch even when Yan is with her. Partly to see her smile and partly to give my fucker guard strikes in case he touches her.
“Did she mention anything?” I ask the same question I do every day.
He shakes his head once, blowing a cloud of smoke. “The usual. She really does believe herself to be Winter.”
I tap my finger against my thigh to keep from punching something. I should be used to it by now, but I never am.
Every day, I hope that she’ll remember me. That she’ll come back.
Dr. Taylor mentioned that the fugue state could last from days to months, and that Lia would eventually remember who she actually is.
It’s been a month already and yet, my wife seems more interested in being a different person altogether.
Yan drags a deep inhale of his smoke, then releases it. “There’s something you need to know, Boss.”
“Talk.”
“That motherfucker Richard put his hands on her.”
My body goes rigid. “What?”
“He harassed her and she kicked him in the balls—among other things—before she left.”
Two emotions rush through me simultaneously. The first is rage. A dark foreboding grips me by the gut at the thought of Richard or any other bastard touching my Lia. I’ll rip every last one of them limb from limb and bathe in their blood so they learn to never fuck with what’s mine.
The second is pride in my Lenochka. She fought because that’s what she is deep down.
A fighter.
The first emotion is stronger and more potent, compelling me to shred Richard’s heart out of his chest and tear him fucking apart.
I tighten my hand into a fist. “Where is Richard?”
“In his office.” Yan taps his cigarette. “Why are you asking?”
“Why do you think?”
“He’s the Bratva’s mayoral candidate, Boss,” Kolya interrupts from the driver’s seat. “Not only would Sergei not like it, but he would also consider it a betrayal.”
“What Sergei doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
I step out of the car and stalk to the back entrance of the shelter. Since I’ve been here countless times either to talk business with Richard or to keep an eye on Lia, I know my way around.
The director of the shelter isn’t aware of who my wife is and he would never suspect that she’s under his roof. When I first had Kolya talk to him about it, he thought she was a prostitute I intended to fuck.
That was his mistake.
At first, I let him believe that because I couldn’t care less what he thought.
But who the fuck is he to believe he could touch her?
That he could put his filthy hands on her?
I twist the doorknob of his office, opening the door and slipping inside. The place is shabby with a faux leather sofa and a desk made of cheap wood.
Richard stands by his chair, dabbing a piece of cotton against his cheek that has fingernail scratches.
My lips twitch as that feeling of pride hits me again.
That’s my Lenochka.
The shelter’s director is a middle-aged man with a flat nose and bushy brows. He dresses in cheap suits that make him look like a wannabe clown.
Upon noticing me, he straightens, ugly greed shining in his bland, mud-colored eyes.
“Oh,” he stumbles over his words. “A-Adrian. I didn’t know we had a meeting today.”
“We didn’t.”
He throws away the blood-soaked cotton and retrieves another one from the top of the desk. “Hold on, let me take care of this. A stupid bitch clawed me and kicked me in the balls…” he trails off when I pull out my gun and the silencer, then take my time attaching it.
Sweat breaks across Richard’s forehead as he watches the weapon with widened eyes. “W-what is that for?”
“Continue.” I stalk toward him. “You were at the part where the stupid bitch clawed you and kicked your minuscule balls.”
He lifts both hands in the air. “H-hey…we can talk about this, yeah? I’m an asset to you.”
“Not when you touch my fucking wife.” I place the muzzle to his forehead, then think better of it and grab my knife.
I’m going to make this fucking personal and stab him until all his blood pours out.
No one touches Lia and lives.
No fucking one.
After I’m done with Richard, I don’t rejoin Kolya and, instead, choose to walk on foot.
To watch Lia.
She’s marching in front of me, oblivious to her surroundings and me. She keeps sipping from a drink that she shoplifted when Yan wasn’t around. Lia was never an alcoholic and she’s not one now either. She just believes she’s Winter—and because Winter was an alcoholic, Lia thinks she is as well.
I make sure Yan dilutes her beer when she’s not looking. I won’t allow her to develop an addiction that she’ll regret.
My wife is wearing a coat and shoes that are a few sizes too big. Yan mentioned that she always complains about the cold and the winter weather. I wish I could take her home, wash her, and tuck her in a warm bed.
After what happened with the shelter’s fucking director, I’m paranoid that the incident will repeat. That she’s no longer safe, even if my guards and I are almost always watching her.
What if I lose track of her and can’t get to her in time?
She stops in front of a New York City Ballet poster, her brow furrowing as she studies it. My feet come to a halt a small distance away, but as usual, she doesn’t notice me.
Will she ever?
Lia remains there for several long seconds, her body slightly trembling before she crunches her can and throws it in the trash.
Well. That’s interesting.
At least she remembers her connection to ballet.
Winter was never a ballerina. However, Lia somehow has it in her mind that she was and even told Yan that she was pushed out by an evil prima ballerina who asked her to seduce her husband.
Per my knowledge, Winter was never married, nor has she had a long-term relationship.
Dr. Taylor mentioned that Lia invented her version of Winter and she could have used references from her own life to fill in the gaps.
I wonder if Lia asked Winter to seduce me. After all, she did want a stranger to take her place in my life.
As if that would ever be fucking possible.
After throwing away the can, Lia starts to cross the street without lifting her head. A van speeds down the street and she’s completely oblivious to it.
I don’t think as I grab her by the elbow and pull her back. For a second, I bask in the feel of touching her, even though layers of clothing are separating us.
Even though she doesn’t smell of roses right now.
I haven’t gotten this close since the hospital. And she didn’t even remember me at the time. She had memory lapses later and didn’t recall the first encounters with me. Dr. Taylor, who visited again, said it was normal for someone in Lia’s state to erase everything from their previous lives. Apparently, only her new identity matters and my attempts to talk to her only caused her to escape deeper in her mind.
To a place where I couldn’t reach.
Lia startles but then flips off the driver when he calls her names. I make sure to memorize his license plate so I can cut out his tongue later.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
I probably shouldn’t be talking to her, in case she has a panic attack like in the hospital, but I couldn’t resist.
I miss her.
I miss my Lia, and the fact that she doesn’t remember me has been eating at my soul like the crashing waves that swallowed her that night.
Lia finally looks at me and she pauses, her aqua eyes widening and her breath audibly hitching.
She observes me intently as if she knows me. Maybe not on the surface, but deep in her heart.
Hope blossoms in my chest because I know, I just know that I can have my wife back.
