Ophelia’s tears stained my thin, dark grey button down, seeping through the fabric to curl my chest hairs. Cupping the back of her head, I savored the feel of her ‒ the smell of her shampoo ‒ the sensation of my shirt tightening from her grip.
“… C-can we go to your p-place?” she asked in a stammering voice.
Grumbling lowly in acknowledgment, I exhaled a heavy breath to clear some of the anxiety that’d settled on my shoulders. Still, though, Ophelia didn’t move, and I surely did not intend to rush her.
4
Ophelia
My mom’s hatred for me brightened by her tears, her glare hot enough to melt steel.
Discomfort gnawed deep into my gut, and I held my shaking hands behind my back. In her eyes, I saw how hurt she was by my betrayal; I could almost hear her cursing me behind the white circle around her tightly pursed lips.
“You’re choosing that nasty dog over your own family! You bitch! You’re no daughter of mine!” Even in this moment before she died, my mother somehow found a way to hate Sascha.
Sadness gripped my chest, but it wasn’t as bad as when I’d called him.
By my side, Aleksander cocked his head. “What does that have to do with you attempting to assassinate my father? How does Ophelia’s boyfriend fit into this in your fucked up head?”
My mom’s eyes had widened in fear.
Those two questions were ones I asked myself often— not in this context, though. Anything that happened, good or bad, my mother found somehow to blame Sascha. I was happy? Well, Sascha made my family look bad. I had a sniffle? Sascha must’ve gotten me sick. It made no sense, compounded by the silence engulfing the garden.
“Is it because she lives and you die?” Aleksander raised a brow at her. “Even then, the boyfriend has nothing to do with it. Why wouldn’t Ophelia do whatever she needed to do to save her own life? Do you honestly think wanting to live is a betrayal? As far as I’m concerned, you betrayed your children when you decided to kill yourself.” Sauntering over to my mom, Aleksander grabbed her chin to pull an ugly squawk from her.
She shivered violently, her hands tied with zips behind her back. Screaming was useless; we lived too far away from anyone because my parents prized their privacy.
The irony was lost to me in this moment, though.
“Even if you did kill my father, you wouldn’t have killed me. The only way this was going to end was you, dead, orphaning your children and giving me the opportunity to lord over your precious, precious girl. I can do anything to her. I can give her to Demitr, as you carelessly handed me her life without any hesitation. That’s betrayal. Turning your back on your children, and now… you’re leaving all your daughters under my heel.”
Jerking up, a shuddering gasp ballooned my lungs with cold air. Holding my eye as it threatened to pop from the sharp ache behind it, I panted viciously. The ringing in my ears slowly died down, and a shiver lodged between my shoulders as I pulled my knee up to prop my forehead.
“Oppie…”
Sascha’s voice, roughened from a troubled sleep, smoothed the goosebumps blanketing my skin. Glancing over as his warm, smooth palm glided up my back, I couldn’t hide my grimace.
“Are you hungry? When was the last time you ate?” he asked.
“I don’t remember. I should eat, yeah.” Relief flooded my body, and I sunk down to cuddle against his chest. Sascha’s familiar smell clung to my nostrils. The feel of his body warmed the cold sweat on mine. Twirling his chest hairs around my finger, I closed my eyes to summon the energy to open my mouth. “My mom’s last words to me was how much she hated you.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Of course, I wanted to talk about it; I just couldn’t find the words to use.
Scratching my head lovingly, Sascha was so patient. He didn’t wait on bated breath or grow tense even as the silence grew heavy and thick.
“My mom and dad bought into the Avernisk’s power play. That in itself is stupid enough to make me think I’m not even their daughter. How can something so incredibly, obviously stupid and risky to me be a viable plan to them? Aleksander Makovich would’ve still been alive— he still would’ve been in control. This would’ve ended the same… thinking of any other alternative is a delusion.” Licking my lips heavily, my frown deepened. “I don’t know what to feel. Maybe, it’ll clear up in a few days when it really hits me.”
Sascha grumbled in acknowledgment, “You’re a rational person, Ophelia. Any rational person would’ve known that plan wasn’t going to work. Power corrupts people, kills people. I’m sure that you just got all the good genes your parents lacked.” Fingertips smoothed by a life of pens caressed my cheek and neck, and Sascha pressed his chin against my forehead. “I’m not so fragile a man that I’ll be upset you’re more successful than me.”
“He’s sending me a handler when he gets back to Saint Petersburg.” My tongue tingled with the need to speak what I feared to bring up; Aleksander’s ultimatum was a lose-lose for me. Either I did what Aleksander commanded, or I gave the Cherinivsky to someone who would. Simple and effective. And disgusting. “Both my sisters are going to Saint Petersburg, too. I’m not going to be able to sit back anymore.”
“Your sisters are spoiled babies. Your brother was a tool. Ophelia, how much do you honestly think your day to day is going to change from this moment on? I’ll still be right by your side. You may trade cleaning up the mess to avoiding the mess in the first place, but… I honestly don’t think much will change.”
Of course, Sascha had a point as he always did. He never opened his mouth without something perfect to say. This was why I loved him, even in a situation like this, he stabilized me with the questions that needed asking, not being hung up on trivialities. “You’re only saying that to make me feel better about the fact that I watched them shit themselves one by one.” Sascha’s beard bristled against my forehead at my bitterness. “My parents and brother did something stupid, and they suffered the consequences. There’s no reason to feel upset that they’re dead, but watching it changed something. I just—I don’t know what that is, yet.”
“Feelings don’t need reason. It’s okay to be disturbed by what you saw.”
I blubbered a breath as this, the helplessness of it all sucking the air from my chest. Against my cheek, Sascha’s heart beat strong and steady, and I clung to it like I never had before.
“If they wanted a plan that worked,” he replied. “They didn’t have to go to Avernisk. I know how much you look down on them. You could’ve come up with a better plan.”
“If I knew—even suspected what they were going to try, I would’ve told Makovich. I probably would’ve been interrogated or something as to why I blabbed— why would I knowingly bring information to him that would most definitely kill my family off? Because I don’t want to be associated with it— that’s why.” Tilting my head to gaze at the soft lines of his face, I reached to stroke Sascha’s beard gingerly. “I love you, Sascha.”
“I love you, too, Oppie.”