by Elodie Colt
I crack my knuckles once more, my nails clawing into my skin.
It all happened so fast. The shed was ablaze within seconds. Deep down, I knew all three were dead, but I threw a stone through the window anyway and crawled inside, hoping to carry the bodies out before the flames swallowed them, too.
Annika’s screams hollered through the night before she stormed the shed. Everything was collapsing around us. I yelled at her to get the hell out, but she wouldn’t listen, and before I could drag her out myself, a heavy beam crashed down from above and buried her underneath.
Four deaths happening in front of my eyes within seconds.
And Annika’s was the worst of them all.
I rub a hand over my chest, heading back into the living room. The pain in my heart subsides the second my gaze falls on Elenka lolling unmoving in the plush chair. Save for Annika’s blonde hair, Elenka is a spitting image of her. Maybe that’s why I fell in love with her the moment she walked into the pharmacy that day.
It was shortly after her mother was diagnosed with cancer. I remember slapping a bunch of prescriptions into her trembling hands before she suffered a panic attack. I calmed her, sat her down in the back room, gave her snacks and water. She appreciated my help and thanked me a hundred times. From then on, she came to the pharmacy every Thursday, crying her heart out. I wanted to ease her pain, but the evil part in me also thrived on it, relieved to have found someone who was hurting as much as me.
I made my move too fast. I thought it would be as easy with her as with Annika, but I was wrong. She shut down my advances. She shut me out of her life.
Keeping my eyes on Elenka’s peaceful features, I sit down on the sofa next to her. She thinks I’m a threat. An imminent peril in her life that tortured her with notes, flowers, and daily phone calls. She has no clue that I’ve been protecting her for almost three years.
Rubbing two fingers over my chin, I reminisce on all the times I’ve saved her. One night, she drew money from a cash machine. A shady guy with a hoodie crept up from behind her and tracked her PIN code. Half an hour later, I was back at my computer to check her account and saw he’d pinched a high four-figure sum. Lucky her, she had a nerdy stalker who got her money back before she even knew what had happened.
Then there was this jerk Filipp Oblonsky. Her fucking boyfriend, he called himself, but thankfully, just a short, petty memory in Elenka’s life. She was so madly in love with him, swooning every time he was near, she didn’t even notice him walking out of her mother’s house with cash and jewelry every time he visited. He bought coke with the stolen money, that worthless junkie. Of course, I pulled some strings and blew his cover. She kicked him out the next day, much to my relief.
But Filipp was a saint in comparison to the motherfucker who broke into her house. It was in the middle of a cold Russian night when I caught him fumbling with the entrance door. I bopped a stone over his head and threw him into the freezing Siverskyi Donets River, but not before seizing the chance myself and sneaking into her bedroom to watch her sleep. She jerked awake when I accidentally stepped on a creaking floorboard, screaming her lungs out until I hurried out the door. If she knew what that perv would have done to her, she would have sung a different tune…
From then on, things became vexing. She reported a stalking offense against me, but I managed to accuse her of filming me without my consent. The last thing I wanted was to get her into trouble, but it was the only way to stay close to her.
And then she made one disastrous decision after another, starting with leaving Russia to move to the fucking US. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m glad she reunited with her sister, but this country is poison for her. She became reckless—driving too fast, wandering through dark alleys alone, signing up for Silent Sins to fuck a stranger…
My nostrils flare at the mere memory of that fucking dating program, and I crack my knuckles once more. Silent Sins. I want to choke whenever the words cross my mind. She was walking into a trap, and I was the only one who could get her out safely. So, I broke into eNtimacy’s headquarters and disabled all security to get my hands on her files. Kate Dugan was a mishap I hadn’t seen coming, and it was all I could do to keep low and set the police on the wrong track. If they ever found out what I did to keep an eye on Elenka, I would never see daylight again. I bugged her apartment and her bike. I followed her everywhere via satellite camera. I’ve watched her from my living room and the café opposite her apartment.
And I’ve watched her fall in love with Nathan fucking Crawford.
I thought I could chase him off. My warning in the form of a note on his windshield didn’t do the trick, so I decided to cut corners and eighty-six him outside that bar. Turned out he was stronger than me, even shit-faced, that fucker.
Which meant going back to square one and drilling some sense into Elenka. I told her to stay away from him but she wouldn’t listen, so I broke into her home to make a statement and nailed it. Literally. To my defense, that dragonfly with the broken wing, Spidey, was already dead when I showed up. I would never hurt her beloved dragonflies. Spidey was just an opportunity to give her a little nudge in the right direction.
Only she chose the wrong direction which was luring me out to Prospect Park Lake to threaten me with her stupid gun. I knew she wouldn’t have the guts to pull the trigger even if the sight alone resurfaced old memories that shook me to the core. But this was my first chance at a real talk with her, and even with the gun’s nuzzle pressing into my chest, seeing her up close and listening to her talking to me had made my day.
Elenka’s finger twitches, and I straighten, but she’s still deep down in dreamland, making me relax back with a sigh. The cheap shirt underneath my suit jacket chafes against my skin, and I scratch an itchy spot on my upper arm. I’d rather change into something comfier, but I’m Dimitri Smirnov now—IT consultant for major corporations. I have to look the part.
Or rather, look like Nathan fucking Crawford if that’s what it takes to make Elenka fall in love with me.
God, whenever I think about that egocentric, narcissistic dude with his arrogant asshole of a father, bubbling oil burns in my stomach. Should the opportunity ever arise, I’ll slice both of their throats and bath in their filthy, money-poisoned blood.
Then again, if it hadn’t been for Vincent Crawford, who knows when I would have gotten the chance to snatch Elenka and bring her here. After they’d chased me out of the city, it was time for plan B—code name ‘Mrs. Miller’s house.’ The old bag was already a living corpse, blind as a mole, and so gout-ridden, it was a wonder she was still able to walk. I did her a favor sneaking in and mixing two dozens of Valium into her stew. She has no relatives, friends neither, so the chances of anyone dropping by to check on her equal zero, and the old, secluded shack is almost invisible up here surrounded by the woods.
No one will find us here. I have all the time in the world to settle Elenka into her new life. Enough time to push Nathan Crawford into the past. Enough time to make her see that I know her better than anyone.
I rise to my feet with a sigh, grabbing a coil of fabric from the table next to me.
“I’m sick of watching everyone walk away from me,” I say softly, unfurling the material I’ve cut from a tablecloth. “I’m sick of losing everyone I’ve ever loved.” Slowly, I lean down to whisper into her ear, “But I won’t lose you. I will keep you. Forever.”
20
Nathan
“Do you take Ella Jenkins as your lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?”
The croaky voice of the priest echoes over the cathedral ceilings. Six hundred wedding guests hold their breath as I expel mine to say the words I’ve been dying to say for so long.
“Yes, I do.”
A beautiful smile lifts my bride’s lips underneath her veil while the priest turns to her.
“And do you take Nathan
Crawford as your lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?”
My heart hammers against my ribcage as I watch her lips part, eager to hear her vow. She looks up at me, her eyes glistening with happy, unshed tears before she says, “Beep, beep.”
I blink, shooting her a befuddled look, but she just continues to smile at me and suddenly screams, “Beep, beep!”
The sound pierces through the haze in my brain, and a groan bubbles out of my mouth when I realize it was all just a dream. Irritated, I pat the nightstand to shut off the alarm that killed my fantasy so brutally. Then I remember that Ella isn’t a fantasy any longer and, in fact, lying right next to me in my bed where she belongs. I stretch out my arm, greedy for her body, but instead of warm, soft skin, my hand only touches silky sheets.
Cold sheets.
My eyelids flutter open, and I prop myself up on my elbow. Rays of sunlight seep through the blinds, throwing a hatched pattern over the bedroom. Ella isn’t here. Maybe she’s in the bathroom getting ready for work.
I grab my phone from the nightstand. It’s way past the time I should be in the office, telling me that my alarm had already gone off an hour ago. Why didn’t Ella wake me?
Tossing my phone onto the bed, I throw the blanket off me and get up. With my dick at half-mast, I pad into the living area and swerve my gaze over the place. The kitchen looks like it had yesterday—with smears on the stainless-steel counter, apples all over the floor, and an untouched coffee maker.
My eyebrows furrow. There’s not even a used mug anywhere. Ella can’t live without coffee. That’s when I notice that one thing doesn’t look like it had yesterday…
Her stuff is gone. No jacket, no bag, no underwear.
I gun for the bathroom, pushing open the door. The toothpaste hasn’t been touched, and her brush hasn’t been moved an inch, either.
“Ella?” I call out, but the only answer I get is the arrhythmic thud of my heart as it dawns on me that she’s not here.
Don’t freak. Maybe she’s already at the office. Or she just left for a minute to grab breakfast.
I backpedal into the bedroom and fetch my phone to check for any messages. No calls, no WhatsApps, not even a plain fucking note.
I press her name in my contacts and put the phone to my ear. It rings—once, twice, fucking six times before my call ends up in her voicemail. I kill it with a curse, hurrying over to my closet to grab the first suit.
Relax, she’s in the office. She’s never been late before. She didn’t run from you again. She came to see you yesterday, after all.
I stomp my feet into my suit pants. Yeah, she came to see me to talk shit out, but I didn’t even give her a chance to squeeze a sentence in before I fucked her unconscious. I thought it was a good idea to go for make-up sex first and leave the heavy conversation for later, but our sexcapade had taken its toll on me, too, making me crash right after I’d put my sleeping beauty to bed.
I’m just about to finish my tie knot when my phone rings, and I jump over to the bed in a heartbeat. Not Ella. I swallow down the disappointment when I take the call.
“Nick,” I mumble, unable to hide my annoyance. “Is Ella already in the office?”
“Uh, no, but there’s something you need to see.”
I barely pick up on his stilted tone in combination with his odd response. The uncomfortable pressure of panic caves in my chest. “She’s not? Are you sure?”
There’s some whisper-yelling on the other end of the line before he responds. “Yes. Nathan, you need to come down right now.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you…”
The urgency in his voice detracts my attention from Ella enough to take my brother’s words seriously. “Okay, I’ll be there in a minute.”
During my elevator ride down to the office quarters, I give Ella three more calls plus a terse voicemail that will probably land in nirvana. I’m about to bust into Brooke’s office to see if Ella is in a meeting with her, but Nick is waiting in front of mine, wearing a bleak expression that alerts me on the spot.
“What—” I start, but he’s already shoving me into my office, quickly shutting the door behind us.
My eyes land on Vincent standing in front of the art niche with his back to me, clad in his trademark designer suit.
I amble into the middle of the room. “You’re back.”
Slowly, he turns around, his muscles stiff as he takes a step to the side. Out of habit, my gaze zooms in on the sixth nook, and that’s when I see that Vincent is not the only one who’s returned after years of being MIA.
The alexandrite ring is back, too.
The universe tilts, twists, fucking disappears, and I stumble a few steps forward. The jewel glistens in all its glory, sitting on its velvet throne just like it had fifteen years ago. I lift a shaky hand, yearning to feel its texture in my fingers before a snap in my brain breaks the spell.
“She came here to put it back…”
Ella didn’t come to reunite with me yesterday.
She came to say goodbye.
That’s why she had that haunted look on her face when she walked up to my door, her eyes clouded with guilt. Because the ring was in her possession. Because she knew the ring was mine.
“Who came here to put it back? Ella?” Nick’s voice breaks through my reverie before Vincent throws in, “Who’s Ella?”
“She is Nathan’s girl…friend…” Nick mumbles, trailing off, and I throw him a look over my shoulder only to see him gaping at Vincent as if he’d just grown a third eye on his forehead. His face looks as if someone used an eraser to get rid of any color, he’s that pale all of a sudden.
Vincent shoots me a quizzical glance, and I push away from the nooks, watching as Nick loses all of his composure for whatever reason.
“Nick, what’s wrong?”
He blinks before his head jerks to me. “Now it makes sense…”
I shake my head. “What?”
“Ella. She said…”
I wait for him to complete his sentence, but he seems to be too stunned to answer. My patience dwindles. “Come on, spill it. What did she say?”
He gulps, pulling at his collar to loosen his tie. “After your fight with Ella about the ring, we met at a café. She didn’t want to talk to you, so I figured she would talk to me, make her see why the ring was so important to you…”
His gaze bounces from left to right, as if replaying their conversation in his head.
“When I told her that Dad gave the ring to a woman, she paled. I chalked it up to nothing, but then she asked me a weird question.”
“What question?” I prompt when he clasps a hand over his mouth, keeping me on edge.
He chances a glance at Vincent. “She asked if Dad had other children, too.”
I frown. A weird question to ask, indeed. Not unfounded, in our case, but still unusual.
Nick scoffs. “You’re still not getting it, are you?”
I just throw my hands in the air, my look telling him to just rip the fucking bandage off already.
His gaze veers back to Vincent. “Your woman, the one you had an affair with. What did you call her again?”
Vincent spares me a suspicious glance, sensing that Nick is cornering him. “Mar.”
“And what was her real name?” Nick asks almost apprehensively. “Her whole name?”
“Marina,” he replies wistfully. “Marina Jendarov.”
I freeze.
Then suck in a breath.
Every molecule in my body turns into an icicle—cold, hard, brittle. My lungs collapse before my body follows suit, sagging down onto the sofa.
If the world has tilted before, it’s now doing a full three-sixty. It makes me dizzy until I have to hack for air in an attempt to fight off the black spots appearing in front of my vision.
�
�Hang on for a second, boys,” Vincent tosses in, lifting his hands in a slow-down gesture. “What does all of this have to do with Mar? What the hell am I missing here?”
I can’t form words. My brain explodes and my insides twist and my heart crumbles, and why hasn’t an aneurysm popped in my head yet?
“Ella Jenkins,” Nick mumbles, collapsing onto the sofa, too, and dropping his head into his hands. “Her real name is… Elenka Jendarov.”
Vincent’s gaze ping-pongs between me and Nick as he feebly tries to understand. “Wait… You think that girl, Ella, is Mar’s daughter? That’s preposterous.”
Nick lifts his head, sending him a dark look, but this time, it’s me who explains in a flat, mechanical tone, “She’s Russian. Her mother died of breast cancer two years ago. She had the ring you gave Marina. When her mother died, she wrote her a letter confessing that Ella’s real father was someone else.”
Vincent flinches, backpedaling a few steps until his back hits my desk. “No. No, it can’t be… That’s—”
“She’s about to turn twenty-nine. Do the math,” Nick deadpans. “You told us Marina kept her daughter a secret until you landed in prison… Your daughter.”
Slowly, I lift my head to look at Nick. Unshed tears blur my vision, but I can see him clearly. Jaw, nose, lips—they are Vincent’s.
And undeniably Ella’s.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
I fell in love with my father’s daughter.
21
Nathan
She knew.
She fucking knew, and she didn’t say one goddamn word.
You didn’t give her the chance, asshole.
I bolt toward the gallery’s entrance doors, sailing through it and out onto the street with the speed of a bullet. My fevered gaze darts left and right. Ella’s bike is not here, nor at the backside or in the garage.
What did you expect, that she walked home on foot?