The Marriage (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 3), Bethany-Kris [books for 8th graders txt] 📗

“But you should have. You should have known.”

“I’m sorry—you’re right. I should have known, Karine.”

Was he?

Did it even matter?

Karine couldn’t make herself look at her father. It was too painful to acknowledge all the wasted time of her childhood, and the way he’d—unknowingly or not—facilitated her loss of innocence and constant torment.

What if she had told her father instead of Masha? Would her life have looked completely different then?

She doubted it.

Maybe he cared now, but he never did then—and that was the only time she’d actually needed him.

“So, you’re saying this is all my fault?” she asked. “That I did this to myself?”

Maxim drew closer to her, his two steps taking away most of the space between them. Startled by his movement, she glared at him, forcing him to moved back again.

“I apologize,” he muttered, “I just ... can’t stand to hear you say that. None of this is your fault. I can’t blame you for surviving, even if in the end that meant you—”

“Tried to kill you,” she finished for him in a whisper.

Maxi sighed. “Yes. The plot ... the one she made with Leonid.”

Karine heard how he said she—the way he twisted the word a bit, his displeasure coating the pronoun like he couldn’t manage to say her alter’s name. Or simply didn’t want to.

“Does she scare you?” Karine asked, honestly wanting to know.

He didn’t answer right away. Karine waited him out; they had the time.

“I think she’s scared, actually,” he eventually said. “Angry and scared.”

“You’re not entirely wrong.”

“But I never knew how to handle it—you, I mean. Like that.”

His discomfort with her disorder wasn’t new. That was the very reason he kept her locked away from the outside world. He was ashamed of what others might see as strange or shameful.

Instead of getting her the professional help she needed—Maxim did what he thought was his only option—keep her as sanitized as possible so he didn’t lose face.

Karine didn’t want to apologize to him for what Katina had plotted. She remembered what Roman said—Katina’s actions were not hers. She never made the decision to kill her father, fear did.

Maxim searched her eyes and dabbed the back of his hand on his forehead. “It doesn’t matter, no, because I deserved all of it, anyway. I deserved it. Every bit of it. I wasn’t the father to you that I should have been. I neglected you terribly. You suffered because of the restrictions I imposed. Because I failed to see you.”

Karine’s heart hurt because she had waited so long to hear those words coming from her father. Her therapy with Michelle and Sylvia had not included the possible repercussions of her father apologizing to her. This was never a part of the plan.

And yet, it was happening.

Maxim seemed to understand.

“It was only at the end, when I didn’t know what would happen to me—that I decided I had to do something. One last act of father who cared, even if it was misguided. I sent you away with to give you a chance. It was the only option I had, and I wasn’t sad when he took it from me.”

One fat tear rolled down Karine’s cheek. When she didn’t wipe it away, the droplet fell from her chin to her lap.

“And thank you for that,” she replied.

“Da,” he agreed in Russian. “I see that worked out for you—a marriage, yes?”

“How could I say no?”

Even her father laughed.

She didn’t remember hearing the sound before—it was as strange as it was interesting.

“I wished I could have told you myself—how much I wanted things to be different between us,” Maxim said, his sudden emotion stunning Karine as much as his laughter. “How much I wanted to save you from Dima and Leonid, and your fate that I had personally signed. It was just too late. I’d done what I had done.”

“So why didn’t you? Why did you stage your own death instead—why run?”

“Because Leonid had grown far more powerful than I realized. Over the years, I had been so caught up with grieving and feeding my own selfish desires that I neglected the bratva. Leonid had it all planned out—I couldn’t have won. He would have taken the seat right out from under me. I wasn’t going to be safe in Chicago unless I went along with his plot, but I didn’t even know about it until it was almost too late. Roman gave me time by telling me what he knew—not a lot, but enough, Karine. Enough time to make another choice.”

Karine’s heart beat faster when she heard his name. Her husband’s name. A smile erupted on her face and Maxim nodded.

“Do you love him?” he asked.

Karine didn’t even have to think about it. “He’s not perfect, but I love him for that, too.”

“Someone told me once that love doesn’t have to be perfect, only yours. I believe it to be true. And now his family is facing the aftermath of what I left behind.”

“Of Dima, you mean.”

“I owe them everything,” he said absent-mindly checking the time on his watch. “I know I do, but I need your help, Karine.”

She stared at her father with her brows raised high. Never did she believe this day would come when her father stood there—asking for her help.

Karine didn’t know what Maxim’s plan was or what he wanted her to do, but the part of her that had been so angry all these years was slowly chipping away. Not because she thought he deserved it, or even because she loved him. But rather, because they were two souls with a purpose that she thought might be the same ...

She didn’t need Roman to tell her every detail to know that things were bad, and his family needed help. If the chance was handed to her to make it happen, why shouldn’t she take it?

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Dima is coming after what he wants. What he thinks belongs to him.”

“Me,” she replied, shuddering. “You can say it.”

“Can and should are