by Marian Tee
Yuri leaned against the wall and closed his eyes as he heard Andreus slam the door behind him.
God. Damn. It.
It had been two weeks since the incident at the beach and another week since he had decided to forbid Kalli from leaving the headquarters, not even for her baking classes, while he tried to figure out what to do.
Problem was, no matter how much time passed, he couldn’t seem to make any decision.
His heart only wanted to love Kalli, but his mind told him he was making the same mistake again.
Pushing himself off the wall, he made his way into the private kitchen, thinking he would find Kalli working on a breakfast bento, but it was empty. Frowning, he went back to their suite, but she wasn’t there either.
Shit.
His blood ran cold.
What if she had left? What if she had jumped to her death? Anything could have happened to her.
Anything.
He skipped the elevator and tore through the stairs, knowing he would get to the lobby faster that way. He headed straight to the common room, knowing he would find everyone there. He would tell them Kalli was missing, and they would make a plan—
But when he reached the doorway, he froze, his plans crumbling, because she was there.
Kalli.
And all her bentos.
Fifty bentos.
One for each biker making up the Afxisi, and seeing how intricate the art was, he knew she had probably worked on them the entire night.
Their eyes met and everyone in the hall fell silent.
Her face was beautiful and composed, her slender, graceful body still as a statue.
But her eyes.
God, her eyes.
How they pleaded with him.
Every bento was a plea from her heart.
Please look at me again. Please talk to me again. Please love me again.
He strode forward and, cupping her face, he kissed her hard, but his voice was hoarse and uneven as he whispered, “I love you.” He realized now that would never change.
Kalli didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. The tears seeping into their kiss, the way her fingers desperately curled against his chest and the way her body fitted against his, wanting to be one with him.
They said it better than the words itself.
She loved him.
It was perfect after that.
They looked at each other, talked to each other like they used to. They held hands under the table. They smiled. Or at least he did with his lips, and she did with her violet eyes.
She presented him with a special bento made especially for him. “Because you are the man I will always love,” she had told him quietly.
She opened it.
Yuri stared. “It’s quite…green.” For once, his impressive vocabulary and beautiful manners both failed him.
Mung beans. Bitter gourd. Green pepper. Pickles.
Too. Damn. Green.
“Andreus told me you love vegetables, and these are your favorites,” Kalli explained.
“I see.” Goddamn Andreus Economou. No wonder the other man had been almost nice to him this morning. Ignoring the half-pitying, half-amused looks from his friends, Yuri forced himself to eat.
“Oh, wow.” Hallie was fascinated. “Your face matches the color of your bento.”
Yuri almost threw up but managed to swallow it back.
Kalli peered up at him. “You do look—”
“I’m okay,” he said immediately. If she said the G-word, he might end up puking after all.
It was perfect.
Or almost perfect.
Until Kalli excused herself to go to the toilet and not long after, they heard the screams.
Kalli!
Everyone ran towards the sound, but Yuri was ahead of all of them.
The first thing he saw was Kalli standing outside the toilet, pale-faced and breathing hard, and in front of her was Lily.
“She tried to kill me,” the volunteer was screaming.
He paid her no attention, cupping Kalli’s face and demanding, “Are you fine?”
Kalli nodded, but her eyes were wild.
“She tried to kill me! Can’t you hear what I’m saying?”
He was going to fire the bitch, Yuri thought coldly. Turning to face the volunteer, he started to tell her that when he saw the marks on her neck. The words died.
Someone had tried to strangle Lily, and those marks were practically the same shape as…Kalli’s fingers.
Kalli whitened when Yuri faced her again. “I did not do anything to her.”
Yuri said between bloodless lips, “Stop lying. How do you think those marks got to her? A ghost fucking did it? Is that what you want me to believe now? The same ghost that wrote the message on the mirror, the same ghost that whispered Madame’s name in your ear?”
Kalli jerked. “B-but Yuri.” Her voice caught, and she looked like a child that had been slapped by the person she trusted the most. “You know I don’t lie—”
“You’re lying right now,” Yuri heard himself shout.
The strain and agony of all the nights he had lain sleepless, thinking about them and seeing no future, finally got to him, and he could no longer keep everything bottled inside him.
Unable to bear the pain in Kalli’s face, Hallie rushed to the other girl, protesting shakily, “Stop it, Yuri—”
“This has nothing to do with you!” Yuri snapped.
His eyes swung back to Kalli, and a shudder racked her body at the fury in his gaze.
Yuri saw Kalli’s lips start to move in her usual feverish chant, and his temper snapped. He started shaking her shoulders. “Stop that!”
But her lips continued to move, and every movement was like a slap against his face, telling him that he loved her so much he had failed to realize she wasn’t just insane but a murderess, too.
“Stop it!” Yuri shook her harder. “Just admit that you lied—”
“But I didn’t—”
“This goddamn moment, you’re lying to me! You told me you wouldn’t hurt me, remember? You promised me you wouldn’t do anything that would cause me pain! But do you think seeing you like this now, seeing what you did to Lily – don’t you know that’s hurting me?”
Kalli’s world started to spin.
She had…promised him that, hadn’t she?
But she had caused him pain?
So she had…lied?
Even when she didn’t do anything to Lily, she had still…lied?
She stared sightlessly at Yuri.
She could no longer see anything.
She was back in the dark.
She was alone.
She was IT.
Her mind shut down.
Hallie screamed.
Yuri caught Kalli just before her head hit the floor. Terror seized him as he felt for her pulse, and he only allowed himself to breathe when he felt it beating, faint but steady.
“Is she okay?” Helios demanded as he rose to his feet with Kalli still in his arms.
He nodded. “You don’t need to call the ambulance. I’ll get a doctor I know. He’s on standby.” And as he said the words, he knew then that he had made his decision. He brought Kalli to her room, and after asking Kellion and Aria to look after her, he left the room and placed a call to Silas Korba.
“Bring your team.”
Silas tried to keep the excitement out of his voice as he answered, “They will be there in half an hour.”
The doctor was true to his word. His team arrived in a black nondescript van, and three men in white uniforms came out. A voice inside Yuri’s head told him everything was moving too fast, and he was making decisions too quickly, but he forced himself to ignore it.
Hallie paled as she listened to the conversation between her brother and the medical attendants. When he turned towards the stairs, she hurried to him, asking brokenly, “Yuri, are you sure?”
“Yes.” His voice was hard, and he no longer sounded like the brother she
knew and loved.
Yuri led the team upstairs but asked them to stay in the hallway. “I’ll speak with her first.”
“Of course, sir.”
Entering his suite, he thanked the president and Aria and asked for a private moment with his fiancée.
Nodding, Kellion slanted a warning look at Aria when he sensed she was about to protest. But then they came out and when Aria saw the medical team waiting, she spun around to face the president, her eyes blazing.
“Over my dead body—”
“Aria.” His voice was grim. “It’s not your choice to make.”
“But—”
“You know that.”
Unable to say another word without breaking down, she walked away furiously.
Inside the room, Yuri slowly approached Kalli.
She didn’t look like the suffering Madonna now.
She only looked…lifeless.
“Kalli?”
She didn’t turn, only facing the window with blank violet eyes. Her lips no longer moved. She was perfectly still.
He sat beside her on the bed. “Kalli, I know you can hear me.”
She still didn’t turn to face him.
“I want you to know that what I’m about to do is because I love you.”
Nothing.
He swallowed hard. “I need to send you away with Dr. Korba—”
Her head snapped to him.
Yuri forced himself to meet her gaze. “He’s the only doctor who can help you right now. He will make you…okay.”
Her lips slowly parted.
And then she was releasing a blood-curling scream like he had just stabbed her.
“NOOOOOOOOOO!”
She tried to scramble off the bed, and he automatically held her down, aghast at how she was reacting. “Listen, Kalli. It’s going to be alright. They’re outside, waiting for you, but I will be with you—”
“NOOOOOOOOOO!”
And this time, Kalli seemed to have inhuman power, managing to push him away.
He saw her heading towards the windows, and he realized then that she was so intent on escaping the medics that she wouldn’t even risk leaving through the door.
“No!” It was his turn to shout just as she managed to unlock his window.
He caught her before she jumped, and she went wild as he pulled her off the ledge.
The door burst open, and the medics immediately pried Kalli away from him.
“No!” She was crying, howling, and fighting them off like her life depended on it.
“No, no, no!”
The sound made him sick to his stomach, and Yuri instinctively reached out to Kalli when one of the medics blocked his path. “Sir, I’m afraid it’s best if you don’t approach her right now. We can’t have the patient think that she can do whatever she wants just because she cried. If you love her, sir, you must be firm.”
The words hit him in the raw.
Kalli’s desolate gaze found his.
Yuri slowly let his arm fell back to his side.
The light died in her eyes.
The last teardrops fell.
And she became still.
“If you truly loved me,” Kalli whispered, “you wouldn’t let this happen.”
The medics put her in a straitjacket even when she was no longer struggling.
Her words left him ashen. “Kalli—”
“You lied.”
The pair of medics took her away, and the third one clapped a hand over his shoulder. “Don’t listen to her, sir,” he advised. “They know what to say to make you feel guilty. They’ve—” His voice faltered when he saw the deadliest pair of blue eyes staring at him. He quickly withdrew his hand and hurried away. He had a bad feeling that if they didn’t leave soon, all the careful planning with the doctor would only land them in jail.
Yuri remained frozen in his spot.
One. Two. Three. He found himself counting the seconds, and every second made it harder for him to breathe.
He could still hear her voice, he thought dully.
Sixty-three. Sixty-four. Sixty-five.
He didn’t think he would ever forget the sound she had made when she realized he wasn’t going to stop the medics from taking her away.
One twenty-three. One twenty-four. One twenty-five.
Yuri sank to his knees.
One eighty-nine. One ninety. One ninety-one
“Yuri.” It was Leon Arlotta, panting, and Yuri had only to hear that voice to know.
He just fucking knew.
Oh God.
What had he done?
Shoving past Leon, Yuri raced down the stairs and sprinted to the parking lot. Then he was firing down the road on his bike, his heart thundering against his chest. Every damn second counted.
He caught up with the van just as it was a few meters away from the exit gates. But the van suddenly went into full throttle as if its driver was aware Yuri was after them.
One second to scan his surroundings, and he knew what to do.
Another second, and he positioned his beast then he let it fly.
Wheels screeched as the driver of the van tried to avoid the huge-ass motorcycle in front of it. He swerved to the right, forgetting there was a row of metal barriers on that side, and the van crashed into them with a loud bang.
Yuri was already running as soon as the van swerved, and he reached the back doors as soon as the van hit the barriers.
He pried the doors open and saw Kalli on the floor, her hands and feet tied, her lip bleeding, and next to her was Dr. Silas Korba, hurriedly trying to pull his pants up.
Yuri went berserk.
Chapter Twenty
Leo filled in the gaps while they waited in the hallway outside the hospital room where Kalli was sleeping, the doctors forced to put her under when she continued to struggle and cry despite Yuri desperately telling her no one was going to hurt her.
“After Kalli told me her suspicions and I got in touch with her law firm, the first evidence we found against Lily was when we reviewed the CCTV footage at the hotel.”
“But we’ve reviewed that as well,” Helios said, frowning.
“Not the footage I reviewed. I’m assuming you checked the footage during the night of the incident and forward. What we reviewed was the footage prior, and that’s when we found out about the room attendant Lily bribed to let her in and leave the message on the mirror. She had left similar messages on whatever glass surface there was in the room. She wanted to increase the chances that Kalli herself would see them.”
“Finally, she learned about which pre-booked room was Yuri and Kalli’s. She flirted with a member of your club and got the information out with pillow talk.”
Helios’ face went grim. It was the first time a member of the Afxisi had engaged in such an act of betrayal.
“From there, it was pretty easy to trace her calls, and that was when we found out about the connection between Silas and Lily. We also found out about another volunteer here, Clare. Lily paid her a substantial amount to whisper another supposed message from the dead and, afterwards, to strangle Lily and make it seem like Kalli had strangled her.”
Silence.
Leon looked at Yuri, asking harshly. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
“No.” Yuri’s voice was polite. “I have nothing to say.” Because what was there to say?
He had it all wrong.
When everyone had left, that was the only time he entered Kalli’s room, taking his usual seat beside her bed. He closed his eyes, and weariness claimed him. When he opened his eyes, he found her awake and staring at him.
He shot up in his seat. “How do you feel?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Do you want me to call a nurse?”
Slowly, Kalli shook her head.
He swallowed. “I want to tell you a story.” His fists clenched. The story was the truth, and he told her about the first time they had met and how he had lied about loving her. When he finished,
he saw that a single tear had tracked down her cheek. He reached out to wipe it away, but she jerked away and his hand fell.
“Kalli, please.”
Another tear fell.
“I’m sorry.”
She only looked at him.
“I love you.”
Slowly, she shook her head.
“You don’t believe me?”
A third tear fell, but she still didn’t speak.
The next day he took her home, and she was silent the entire time, her eyes never meeting his, her body jerking every time he was too near. Hallie carried a tray of food to Kalli while Yuri went down to join the other members of the Afxisi.
He looked down at his food.
He remembered the times she had made him bentos.
He remembered the time she had made everyone bentos.
But under the bittersweet memories, darker visions emerged.
Of a pale-faced child called it, who had been starved for food and affection.
That was Kalli.
That was the girl who had loved him.
That was the girl he had almost broken.
Food equals love.
Had Mila told him that? Or was it the flight attendant? Or perhaps Kalli herself?
He could no longer remember.
All Yuri knew was that he did not deserve…this.
This plate that was so easily placed in front of him when for so many years Kalli had fought for a bite of garbage.
This…being Kalli’s selfless love, which she had given to him without question and complete trust.
Trust he had violated.
He pushed the plate away.
The pain consumed him, and he realized dully this was probably how Kalli had felt when she thought he would leave her. When she discovered he was sending her away. Her heart had been ripped open and the pain was so terrible she no longer cared who saw or heard her.
In front of everyone, bikers and volunteers, Yuri Athanas wept.
****
Hallie knocked on Kalli’s door. “Dinner’s here.” There wasn’t any answer, but she didn’t expect one. Kalli had been home for over a week, but she hadn’t spoken a word except to ask if she could go back home.
“I just want to go home, Hallie, please.”
And every time, she had to turn Kalli down.
Inside Yuri’s suite, she found Kalli seated by the window, a blank sketchpad before her.
