by Elodie Colt
“I think you’re missing the forest for the trees,” he goes on in a patronizing tone that isn’t lost on me as if he was the only person in the room with a halfway acceptable IQ. He flashes a glance at Zoya. “Her messages were clear. She wants to leave. Period. So, what are the chances of her going back to where she came from? We’ve met many Russian citizens who refuse to integrate into the American culture and—”
Gathering from the way his head jerks up to me, my control snapping at his derogatory tone practically cracks the air as I gun for him. Fucking racist. I’m going to frame him for whatever is needed to get him behind bars and make sure he’ll share a shower with some scary-ass dudes, preferably the XXL-dick kind.
The guy is out of his seat before I can pull him up, but that doesn’t keep me from grabbing the collar of his uniform to smack him against the nearest wall. Collective gasps echo through the room, along with an appalled comment from the female cop, but they fall on deaf ears.
“In case your IQ is lower than your age, let me help you along with that job of yours you’re incapable of doing,” I seethe. “Ella Jenkins went above and beyond to escape a stalker who’s changed his identities more often than Trump changed his campaign promises.”
A mixture between an angry sneer and a smug grin crosses his features as if he’d been waiting for an opportunity to make some shackles click today, but before he can give me a lecture about how I’m going to regret assaulting a cop, I deliver my speech.
“Now, if you still think she left on her own will, right after settling down in a new home, with a new job, a new man, a new fucking future ahead, without giving her sister, whom she loves dearly, a heads-up and without taking anything with her, not even from her old apartment, then I should pay your superior a visit and question his training methods.”
The female cop bounces her gaze between us, clearly torn between telling me to get my hands off her partner and reminding him not to fuck with a Crawford.
“But as Sergeant Cameron is a good, old friend of mine, whom I trust to put his best team on this case,” Vincent remarks with a hand on my shoulder and a meaningful look at officer Baker, strategically diffusing the situation and showing the fucker his place, “I suggest we let the cops resume their work and see what we can do to help them.”
I keep my blade-sharp gaze on Baker a second longer before I release him. He looks close to ripping my head off but the poor dude knows that, despite his badge and gun, Vincent is higher up on the authority ladder.
After an awkward parting and a lame-ass ‘We’ll do our best to find her,’ from the cops, Vincent steers me out the door. I frown down at his hand on my arm, wondering why he’s in such a rush to get out of here when he answers my question on his own accord.
“Nick just shot me a message,” he says. “Susan got robbed.”
“Are you sure nothing else is missing?” Vincent asks Susan, swerving his gaze over her jam-packed store as he ducks under a funky, dome-shaped pendant lamp casting rainbow lights all over the ceiling.
The irony of Vincent investigating a theft isn’t lost on me, even if his famous jewelry heist was a different caliber.
Susan huffs, drumming her blood-red fingernails onto the counter and sending him a flinty look over the rim of her glasses. “I know my store better than Monet knew his paintbox, Vin. Everything is where it should be except for, well, the obvious…” She waves a hand at the empty space in front of the store window.
I shove my hands into my pockets, working my way around the jungle of artifacts, relics, and jewelry. How anyone can keep track of the massive amount of goods spread out in here is beyond me. You can’t even turn around without bumping into a shelf or something dangling from the ceiling.
I scratch my nose that itches from the smell of incense, stopping when I find nothing out of place. But really, I couldn’t tell.
“I told you years ago to invest in more security,” I dare point out, gaining a dark look from Susan.
“My first husband also told me I would never make a living with my store, just as he vowed to be true to me for all eternity.”
I scoff, ambling over to the round, bright patch on the tiles where the impressive statue stood for years—the big duplicate from the famous René Lalique piece of a helmeted woman with dragonfly wings and countless gems. Valuable for sure, but I don’t need to be an expert like Vincent to know that it’s not the most inconspicuous and certainly not the easiest piece to steal considering its size and weight.
Vincent sighs, eying the mangled entrance door with a lock so old, I could break it with a chopstick.
“Well, it stands to reason that the thief wasn’t after money but after this particular piece. I mean, he could have just run off with the gems from the cabinets…”
My phone rings, and I mutter a curse. Carl. He’s never called me three times on repeat. An uneasy feeling unfolds in my stomach, so I decide to hear him out.
“Carl, what—”
“Thank fuck,” he grumbles. “Nathan, we need to speak immediately.”
I rub two fingers over my forehead. “Really bad timing, Carl. Susan has been robbed, and I’m—”
“I know, she already called me, but this is really important.”
The alarm in his voice makes me frown. Nothing can unhinge the cheerful, perpetually optimistic Carl Kelly.
“Okay, shoot.”
“Not on the phone. At your office in an hour?”
I sigh, already about to give him a rain check as I really don’t need any more shit on my desk other than finding Ella, but then the impossible happens. Or rather, appears.
Crawly, Ella’s dragonfly.
It buzzes in front of the broken door, hovering right at eye level, and I place my hand against the cracked glass, lost on words.
That’s the sign you’ve been waiting for, man.
I clench my jaw, keeping my eyes on the insect.
“I’m on my way.”
24
Nathan
I storm into my office like a tornado. Every nerve itches and hums and buzzes until I want to crawl out of my skin, knowing that, whatever revelation awaits me, it will be a shocker.
But I freeze in the doorway the moment I see Brooke, Nick, and Carl already waiting, making Vincent bump into my back.
“What’s this? A family intervention?” I can’t hide the irritation in my tone as I scowl at Carl, demanding answers.
He’s perched against my desk, clad in his usual gray suit. For once, there’s no smile showing the laugh lines around his eyes, only worry, remorse, and an austere expression.
Vincent brushes past me while I close the door behind us.
“Carl, what’s going on?” he asks with dubious glances at Nick and Brooke, who are both seated on the large sofa.
Nick has his arms propped on his knees, dry-washing his hands, while Brooke just sends Vincent a flat stare, throwing one leg over the other and impatiently rotating her heeled foot. The air turns from fresh to thick in a heartbeat, loaded with the mountain of family secrets that Vincent has been dragging with him all these years. Needless to say, the last twelve days weren’t exactly peaceful. Heated arguments and heavy disputes have been on the daily agenda ever since the biggest secret came to light—the secret that Vincent is Ella’s lawful, full-blooded father.
Well, I think it’s safe to say that, if fourteen years of imprisonment weren’t punishment enough for Daddy, then the last two weeks certainly were. Hateful looks from Zoya, cold looks from Brooke, disappointed looks from Nick—not to mention the looks he’s already dreading to receive from his daughter when they finally come face-to-face.
And me? Mysteriously, I’d been the only one handling the mess Vincent made with composed apathy. For one, because I knew it wasn’t his fault seeing as Marina Jendarov left him in the dark, but mainly because I had a far bigger problem to deal with—Ella’s disappearance. Or, from the looks of it, her kidnapping.
Carl heaves a long sigh, starting the conversation w
ith a loaded, “Brooke told me that Ella was missing.”
Gee, thanks for the update, man.
Vincent saunters over to the art niche, but if he notices the once-more-empty nook number six, he doesn’t comment on it, waiting for Carl to get to the point of this urgent meeting while I keep standing next to the door.
Carl crosses his arms and ankles, scratching his salt-and-pepper stubble. “You know my private residence is on Staten Island. From all the estates I own, this is the only one where I can take a piss without any paparazzi flashing their cameras at me. There was this old lady, Mrs. Miller, who lived in that decrepit house at the far end of Latourette Park. Very secluded and lonely with rarely any passersby. Once in a while, I take a walk up there and enjoy the peaceful nature.”
He inserts a pause, and I can’t help but comment with an impatient, “Not sure where you’re going with this, Carl.”
The ominous look he throws me from behind his glasses tells me he’s about to get to the point that will no doubt go off like a nuke, and my teeth click shut, letting him continue.
“Mrs. Miller was an old trout, for sure—morose, nasty, and hateful to people in general. So, naturally, I was surprised when I spotted someone on her property, someone who had no business there seeing as she had no relatives, and certainly no friends. I figured he was a social worker or something until…”
He trails off, and we shoot each other questioning glances before Nick prompts, “Until what, Carl?”
“Until I saw him dragging Susan’s dragonfly statue through the door.”
We all start to talk at once, voicing our questions, assumptions, and insults, but Carl holds up a hand, silencing the commotion.
“That’s not all.” His gaze jolts back to me before he reveals, “I heard the guy talking to himself in Russian.”
There’s a click inside my brain. A locking mechanism that triggers as soon as I combine the words ‘dragonfly statue’ and ‘Russian,’ freezing me to the spot.
What are the fucking odds?
“I haven’t seen him up close,” he continues when I go rigid, “and to be honest, after all the information I gathered from you and Kate Dugan, he didn’t exactly look like the guy you’ve been searching for, but still…”
Vincent scoffs. “Last time we checked, the guy had six different names. It would surprise me if he hasn’t changed his appearance to stay off the radar.”
I zone out for a moment, clenching a fist around my pendant. Luka’s obsession with Ella goes beyond the realms of sanity. He wants to keep her. Lock her up and keep her on a leash like a fucking dog. But he also hopes to win her heart, make her see that she’s better off with him, wooing her into a relationship, no matter how baneful. He needs grand gestures because the small ones won’t do the trick.
And what better way to prove his poisonous, undying love than with an eighty pounds dragonfly statue on her birthday?
“What are you waiting for, then?” Brooke cocks an eyebrow at Vincent. “Call the cops.”
“Fuck the cops,” I spit. “I’m going to bring the motherfucker down myself.”
“Hold on a sec,” Carl says before I can turn tail, rubbing a hand over his neck. “I think it’s time to clear the air…”
A growl builds in my throat. My girl could be tied up in a bunker, at the mercy of a psychopath, and he’s wasting precious time cleaning his glasses on his damn suit jacket.
He sends Vincent a glance before he pushes his glasses back onto his nose. “I knew that Ella was your daughter long before you told me…”
Vincent tenses, and while I thought my muscles couldn’t strain any more than they already did, the moment Carl’s sympathetic gaze shifts to me, I become downright paralyzed.
“…and I knew who she was way before you met her outside of Silent Sins, Nathan.”
Someone unclog my ears, please, because I must have misunderstood.
“Carl!” Brooke exclaims with a hand over her heart, for the first time expressing something other than cool impartiality.
“Are you fucking serious?” Nick throws in while I just gape at Carl, unable to utter a word.
Vincent finds his voice sooner than me, blinking at his best friend and prowling his way over to him. “What did you just say?”
I swear the temperature drops as his icy words float through the room, and everyone waits with bated breath for one of them to lose their shit.
Carl straightens, picking up on Vincent’s murderous vibes, and raises his hands at chest level in a calm-down motion.
“When Nathan told me that Kate Dugan’s attacker could be Ella’s stalker and asked me to do some research on Devonport—that was her code name—I found out that her birth certificate was fake, so naturally, I dug deeper and eventually came across her real name, Elenka Jendarov. I followed the trail back to Marina Jendarov—the woman whose letter you showed me—and connected the dots.”
A deafening silence follows his speech, and I’m sure my face pales as fast as Vincent’s, but this time, it’s me who finds his voice first.
“You knew?” My words are low but deadly. “You knew that I was fucking my father’s daughter in the dark?”
Brooke shoots up, bristling. “Nathan!”
Okay, I admit, I could have worded it better, but… What. The. Fuck.
Carl’s head whirls from Vincent to me, and he gulps. “There was no way eNtimacy’s algorithm could have detected your relation to her. When I found out, my first thought was to blow it off right away, to cut ties between you and her, but I also knew that technically, you weren’t related, so I figured, what’s the harm in waiting to see how it was going to play out?” He lets the question hover in the air, expelling a deep sigh. “Dammit, Nathan, you two were such a perfect match…”
“A perfect match?” Brooke repeats with a scoff, the choker around her neck moving as her jaw locks. “You let my son get involved with my husband’s illegitimate child?”
If Carl felt cornered before, now he looks downright gutted seeing Brooke’s disregard.
“I didn’t—”
“You knew she was in danger and yet you didn’t say a fucking thing?” I cut right in, demanding answers to my questions first. With my steely gaze on him, I move slowly, stepping closer with a finger pointed at him. “After I told you she was hunted? After I asked you to help me?” I’m in his face now, poking my finger into his dress shirt. “After I begged you to give me just one, fucking clue?”
He shakes his head, lifting his hands in surrender. “Nathan, please understand that I—”
Smack.
His head suddenly swings to the other side, his glasses clattering to the ground. An oomph sound comes from Carl as he doubles over from the punch Vincent delivered so swiftly, I hadn’t seen his fist coming.
Brooke gasps, and Nick darts to his feet, coming to Carl’s help as his nose spurts blood over my hardwood floor.
“All this time…” Vincent growls, legs planted wide and his hand still balled into a fist, one he doesn’t bother to drop when Carl gets back to his feet with help from Nick. “All this time you knew that she was my daughter—the one I’ve been dying to meet ever since I’d known of her existence, the one who’s been sleeping with my son under my roof, the one who’s been hired to work in my gallery—and you just decided to ‘see how it would play out?’” He adds the last part in a mocking tone, forming quote marks in the air. “What kind of asshole friend are you?”
Nick is about to intervene, but I hold out a hand to push him back, taking him with me as I retreat a few steps. I’m not feeling the warm fuzzies toward Carl now, either, so who am I to interrupt their feud?
Carl picks up his broken glasses, unconcerned by the blood ruining his silk suit. Rolling his jaw, his eyes cut toward Vincent.
“Oh, that’s rich, coming from you.” He steps closer until they can inhale each other’s breaths. “Who asked me to keep your daughter a secret, huh? Who wanted me not to say a word to your family who, despite everything you did
, still had your back? Who forced me to lie to your sons’ faces, year after year? To your wife’s?”
Nick casts me a look as if to say, ‘He’s got a point.’ I shrug.
“I’m surprised you even managed to keep your mouth shut, Carl,” Vincent says with a snort. “After all, you would have loved to see my marriage going down the drain, wouldn’t you? Tell me, my friend… How often did you want to fuck my wife behind my back?”
Every time she was in the same room, that’s for sure.
“I don’t know,” Carl drawls, an evil glint in his eyes. “I guess as many times as you fucked Marina Jendarov?”
Smack.
“Whoa!” Nick exclaims when Brooke is suddenly in front of them, slapping Carl’s face so hard, it snaps to the other side. I almost wince at feeling his pain.
This time, he keeps his head down, frozen in the motion and away from Brooke as if admitting defeat.
“That’s for being a shitty friend,” she seethes, her temper flaring.
Vincent puffs out his chest, victorious. “Serves you right—”
Smack.
My eyebrows shoot to my hairline when Vincent’s head swings to the side, his cheek sporting the same handprint as Carl’s.
“And that’s for being a shitty husband.”
Brooke juts out her chin, stemming her hands on her hips as the two men cower in front of her, both too stunned—and too afraid—to say a word. Can’t blame them. She’s not called the Crawford Queen for nothing.
Smacking her glossy lips, she brushes invisible dust off her hands.
“Should have done that a long time ago…” she mumbles as she twists around to shoot me an order. “And now, go save that poor girl, for God’s sake.”
25
Ella
Happy birthday, Ella. May it hopefully be the last.
I try to tune out the clink of the chain links as I continue to chop carrots with as much enthusiasm as a sloth on weed, but the sound follows my every movement—a constant, excruciating reminder of my never-ending imprisonment.