BAD APPLE: The Complete Series (Parts 1-5) (27 page)

Vadim

“I want to know where you are all the time.”

Those spiteful words are spit at me with so much venom, I feel the hatred my wife has for me with every syllable.

I hate her, too, with a passion that is only rivaled by the fierce intensity of love I feel for another. I have never loved Ashley, not for a day since I have known her, and I am ashamed to say that my hatred for her has only grown in the years we have been imprisoned in this marriage.

“And I want to know when you are going to stop being so evil and release me from this devil’s bargain,” I mutter, swallowing my drink in one gulp and pouring another.

Ashley snarls in that way she does, the one where her face looks like she’s pure evil, and spits a curse at me as she directs her chair to the window, right in front of the view I was using to ignore her presence.

“You are my husband.”

“In name only, Ashley, and if you aren’t careful, that won’t even be yours anymore.”

“Are you threatening me, Vadim? You think Papa would let you leave me after what you did!” she yells, her thin face twisting cruelly.

Jesus Christ, I fucking hate the sight of her till I want to gouge out my own eyes. She used to be so pretty and filled with life at one time, and I loved her as the woman of my best friend Peter.

Now all I see when I look at her is the woman who cost me a friend and stole my life in her selfish need to take what does not belong to her.

If not for my family I would have left her behind a long time ago and said to hell with the promise I made Pete as he lay dying on the side of the road, his only thought for the woman he loved. One who had been such a giving, deserving soul.

But she is no more. The Ashley I once used to tease and conspire against Peter with is gone. All that is left is this ghost, this malevolent force who gets meaner and meaner by the day, even as I get wearier.

It’s becoming harder to stay and fulfil the vow I made to Peter and the deal I made with her father the more I see her and compare her to Nikita.

God, Nikita. Just thinking her name makes my heart scream in agony. I miss her like crazy and hurt with every breath I take that is not infused with her scent.

She is every good part of me, every light and hopeful piece of me that used to live for the days and nights when I was in her presence. But she is lost to me now.

She’s gone and I know that she will never let me near her again, not after that son of a bitch Lincoln Leonides told her the truth about me.

I want to be angry. Hell, I am angry that he’s taken her from me, and yet I cannot blame him. I hurt her. I took from her something I had no right to. And I gave nothing back to her, at least nothing that she could see.

She owns my heart, though. She has from the first day when I saw pure perfection encased in that outer shell that is meant to fool others. I saw the real her. I looked past that put-together, crude-mouthed harridan and saw the raw woman hiding behind the façade.

And I loved her with an intensity that can only be meant for soul mates. Yes, I believe she is mine just as I know I am hers.

But I cannot have her and that is killing me, because this woman—this woman who calls herself my wife but is nothing to me—refuses to relinquish that part of me that I would give Nikita in a heartbeat if I could.

“Leave me be.”

“No! You’re a fucking liar and a cheat. You think I don’t know about that whore you’ve been fucking for weeks, Vadim!”

“You shut your mouth! Do not speak her name. Do not speak of her at all, you vile snake. You are not worthy of her name, and I will not have you insulting her when she is nothing like you or I,” I yell, throwing the glass at the opposite wall and grabbing the bottle to take long, slow pulls of the amber liquid.

“Oh, so Vadi is in love, huh?” she sings, her mouth twisting cruelly when I am too slow to hide the pain that flashes across my face.

“Get out, Ashley.”

“Why? Because you want to sit here in the dark all by yourself and pine for your little whore, Vadim? Why not go one better and cry, Vadi? Why not go one better and drink yourself into a stupor and get behind the wheel!” she screeches at me.

“That was not my doing! You and Peter chose to get so wasted that neither of you could walk a straight fucking line with a handhold to assist you! You got into that car. You argued with him. You pushed him to the point that he lost control.”

“You promised to come for us. I called you!” she yells again, sobbing into her hands as the memories flood back and bombard me all over again.

I remember every minute of that night with such clarity that the only thing that saves me from the nightmares is the ache I feel for Nikita.

Peter and Ashley were my best friends in high school, and college roomies when we thought we were too good for dorms and moved in together to play house.

We were inseparable and so close that I would often spend more time with Ash as Peter went to med school and tried to get into one of the programs his professor was running.

She was as much my buddy as he was, and I loved her the way I love a sister, with warmth and amusement and indulgence. But that’s where it ended, for to want anything more could have been to kill a friendship with Peter, and that I would never have done. Not for anything.

We all made it through college unscathed and I was so busy working to prove myself to Misha, and then later to keep his business afloat when Minkie died, that I couldn’t be bothered to fill my nights with partying and clubs and drinking.

Ashley and Peter never quit, though—not the party couple everyone expected to see walking through the doors first and leaving last. They kept at it as they always had, juggling work, life, and all the responsibilities and hardships that come along with growing up.

And the cracks started appearing. Pete would call me often, asking advice, pleading with me to help him save his relationship as he and Ashley started arguing more and more, their once strong love and attraction floundering beneath the strain of life.

I tried. I swear I did. I spent hours trying to get them to talk instead of yell, embrace instead of blame each other for life’s cruelties. In the end I just pulled away again and did what I had to while my brother fell apart and tried to kill himself at the bottom of a bottle.

Then one night Ashley called me, crying, sobbing hysterical, and slurring so badly that I could barely understand a word. Eventually I got it out of her that Peter had caught her kissing another man. She swore it was no fault of hers, that she’d been pushing him away when Pete walked in.

To this day I can’t say whether I believe her or not. All I know is that I was on my way to them, terrified at the thought of Peter getting into a car in his condition.

I didn’t make it to that party, though. I saw his car two blocks from my destination—flipped, crushed, and completely totaled. I felt my world start crumpling with more grief.

He’d been thrown free through his open window because he wasn’t wearing a belt, while Ashley was trapped in the squashed can that was the car.

There was nothing I could do for either of them but hold his hand and wait for emergency services as he lay gasping, bloody, and begging me to watch over her.

He died the moment I made that vow, and I have been paying for it ever since. Ashley was in a coma for three weeks before waking to the cold reality that she would never walk again.

I was there every minute I could spare as I forced Misha to come back and save what he had worked so hard to build. I was there for every PT session and every failed attempt until the doctors found that she had severed something that the scans had not initially picked up.

That was that.

I thought I could be her friend, watch over her and support her, but it didn’t end up that way. Oh no. She blamed me for it all. I let him drink too much. I never tried to help him. I came too late.

In her mind it’s all on me, and I get that because I think that if she doesn’t feel that way, she’ll eventually know that it’s all on her and that will kill her.

In the end, I was going to give up. At least that’s what I wanted to do, until her father came to me with an offer I could not ignore. He would look the other way and not inform the council that one of my cousins was stealing merchandise if I married his daughter. Because that’s what she wanted.

I don’t blame him. The man is terrified Ashley will be left alone if anything should happen to him because the mother is long dead and they never had siblings for Ashley.

What little relatives they do have are in Russia.

I took the deal, stupidly believing I could divorce eventually and move on. I want children and someone to love. I want what Mama and Papa have.

I want Nikita.

Instead I am stuck.

Stuck in this empty, soulless misery because she may hate me enough to ensure that I will never know happiness. This is why her knowledge of Nikita is so terrible for me.

She wants me broken, and knowing that I am hers and that I can never have what I love must be her happiest moment since Peter died and left her broken and alone.

“I was on my way, Ashley. I was two fucking blocks away when he lost control and rolled the car. I begged you to take his keys. I warned you that he would ignore sense and try to leave. Once again you ignored everything but your own spite, and you got into that car. Why? Why get into the car and continue to scream at him when you knew it would only enrage him further?!”

She’s sobbing now, her face in her hands as my words hit her. I have never gone this far with her, always too afraid to hurt her more than she already has been by pushing the questions that have been running in my brain for so long.

Peter was drunk when he got into that car, of that I have no doubt since I was always the one who took it easy so that we could all get home safely. Pete had no control and would get pissed out of his bracket every time. Party animal.

But he knew how to drive since his father had been racing cars for years and took him out on the track since he was old enough to toddle along.

He knew how to control anything with four wheels and would never have allowed the car to flip the way it had.

“What did you do, Ashley?”

She keeps sobbing and I know I should comfort her. Hell, a few years ago I would have done just that and done everything in my power to ease the pain she’s feeling now.

Not anymore, though. She’s succeeded in stripping away everything I once felt for her, leaving only hatred and resentment behind.

“Go away!”

“No. I won’t, not anymore, you hateful bitch. I’ve spent years suffering in this marriage, years of your verbal ranting and abuse as I tried and tried to make you understand that I am not to blame here. I did nothing but love the two of you and try to be there for you every step of the way. Hell, I was refereeing one of your stupid fucking fights the day after I stood beside my sobbing brother and put my niece in the ground.”

That silences her immediately and I watch with cold satisfaction as she flinches and just seems to deflate and fall into herself. While she’s silently crying, her tears tracking slowly down her pale face, I retake my seat and resume drinking, watching her the whole time.

“He was so angry at me, so furious when he walked into that room. I saw the pain, though, and I was happy. Can you believe that, Vadi? I enjoyed it because I’d been so mad at him that morning when instead of coming to Papa’s with me, he chose to go to an extra shift. He was working all the time and I was always alone. Always. When I got home from lunch he was there, passed out on the sofa again, sleeping, and I was angry because I knew he could have come by to see Papa but he didn’t want to.”

“He was trying to make more money so that you could get a place closer to your father. He knew how much you missed him and he wanted better for you than a studio loft.”

That makes her smile and I feel something like kindness spark inside me for the memory of what she used to be.

“I loved that apartment, Vadim. I told him over and over again that it was perfect as long as he was right there with me, but he wouldn’t hear me. He kept going and going and going till I wanted to scream with frustration. And then…then one day he left his phone at home and I came back because I had forgotten a client’s portfolio there. It rang. I answered. He was fucking one of the other interns at the hospital.”

Christ.

“I am sorry, Ash. I didn’t know.”

“Of course not,” she says, her mouth twisting. “You would have kicked his ass and been disappointed in him. I-I was so angry and hurt, Vadi, but I loved him. So much. So much that I begged him to put an end to it and want me again.”

“Ash—”

“He said he would end things, Vadi, and for a few weeks things were good. He tried, I tried harder, and I thought, okay, we will survive this because we love each other and we were meant to be. Till that night we went to that party and I saw him kissing her. I was so mad, Vadi. I drank and drank till I felt nothing. I drank till the agony inside was no more.”

“And then you decided to get even?” I mutter, not blaming her one bit for what happened next.