“Promise me you’ll listen.”
And that’s exactly what I was afraid of. The way my soul wants to take flight at the vulnerability in his voice. The way I almost want to forget that he has a family somewhere else he never told me about.
Not that it would have changed anything, but I entered this relationship without carrying a bag full of secrets. He didn’t.
I don’t answer, afraid of saying the wrong thing.
Julia isn’t home when we walk in, and for a few moments I let myself look at the forest in the early hours of the morning. There’s a particular calm in this place that smells of rain, pine, and cedar, and it loosens some of the anxiety from the past several hours.
“Ten years ago, Aleksandr Rastovski hired me and my brother to help him avoid certain taxes for a construction company he’d set up near New York. The figures were significant, so we agreed our fee would be a few thousand dollars, a number he accepted without argument.”
I turn around, cross my arms over my chest, and lean against the nearest desk, trying to keep the distance between us.
“I told Dean I didn’t have a good feeling about the man, but the money was substantial to us, and at the time we couldn’t afford to turn down work like that. So I accepted, in spite of the sense that something wasn’t right. The day he was supposed to pay us, he sent us an address for a warehouse and told us to meet him that evening. Dean got there before me. When I finally found the location — only a few minutes separating us — I found my brother lying in a pool of his own blood, because that fucking snake didn’t want to pay what he owed.”
There’s a knot in my throat as I listen because the person standing in front of me isn’t Silas Vaughn, one of the mostrespected mathematics professors in the world. It’s a grieving brother, and all I want is to move from where I’m standing and hug him, but I force myself to stay put.
“I held him for seven minutes and forty-two seconds while he bled out on that dusty concrete floor. Dean was engaged to Karina, who, unbeknownst to us, was three months pregnant with Sebastian, my nephew.”
All the pieces he’s handing me are starting to settle into place, and yet I still don’t understand how he ended up married to his brother’s fiancée. Or why his name appears on Sebastian’s birth certificate.
“Karina is an undocumented immigrant from Colombia. After Dean’s death, she needed hospitalization, and only then did I realize that her situation with her papers was going to be a serious problem. She had an alcoholic father in Colombia I would never have trusted to take care of her and Sebastian, so I solved the paperwork problem through marriage. We didn’t want to raise suspicion, so I put myself down as Sebastian’s father. And we decided to wait for the right moment to tell him everything. He knew his dad’s name was Dean, but we never gave away details about how he died.”
I don’t think anything could have prepared me for this story, but somehow, I feel that he’s telling me the truth. And something in my heart breaks for him, for the Silas who was barely entering adulthood when he took on this many responsibilities overnight.
“So...” I try to form something, but I don’t know what.
“I’m divorced now, Amalia.”
Those four words make me look up at him, and I know he can see every question in my eyes.
“During those three days I was away, I explained everything to Karina as well, and she understood. We could have dissolved the marriage on paper years ago, we just never felt the need.There was never anything between us but the kind of love you have for a sibling. We both loved Dean, and we both adore Sebastian. I’d never seen myself in a stable relationship that would make their existence a problem worth addressing, and she felt safe behind the arrangement because she’s still in love with Dean.”
I try to read his expression, the way the color of his eyes deepens as he watches me.
I move toward him, and the moment my hand makes contact with his chest, I know he’s holding his breath.
“Amalia.” My name on his lips is more of a whisper, but I feel the desperation in it, the need for me to believe him.
“Let’s clean that wound.”
I’m exhausted. Mentally, emotionally, physically. And just before I push his shirt off his shoulder, I hear my older sister’s voice.
“Amalia Sanchez, you have exactly two minutes to explain to mequé carajohappened and who I need to put in the crosshairs of this rifle,” she says, and I can practically hear the walls shaking on her end.
Sweet mother of Thales, what do you say about a hole in the ground?
Amalia is talking with her sister while I stand looking out at this property patrolled by soldiers carrying various types of weapons. I don’t know exactly what these people are involved in, but judging by everything that happened at that cabin this morning, something tells me law enforcement was not notified of the situation.
I feel him step up to my left, but I don’t turn toward him.
After everything that happened this morning, my energy is nearly gone. My mind is empty for the first time in ten years, now that I know the man who killed my brother is six feet underground.
“I’m sorry I almost put a bullet in your head,” I tell Maksim, looking at the pine forest in front of me.
“It’s not me you need to apologize to. Juls, though…if you see her anywhere near the rifle, stay out of her way for a while. She’s fairly protective when it comes to the people she loves.”
I don’t miss the emphasis he puts on that word —loves.I haven’t finished my conversation with Amalia, but I know I won’t let it go until she understands that everything was a misunderstanding, and that she is the only woman for whom I would ever contemplate this notion oflove.
