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And as I stare at her, mute with horror, she buries her face against her knees and cries.
48
Chloe
My stomach is a pit of ice and churning acid, my fingers numb and clumsy as I stuff my old clothes into my suitcase. Alina is on my bed, passed out, the drugs and the sleepless night having finally taken their toll.
I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing; I just know I have to leave. Right now. Before Nikolai wakes up. Truth or lies, reality or madness, I stand no chance of sorting it all out while I’m here, under his roof and at his mercy, with that overpowering chemistry simmering between us, dragging me deeper under his lethal spell.
I’m not sure what I’d thought I’d hear from Alina. An admission that they’re mafia, after all? And maybe they are. At this point, nothing would surprise me. From the beginning, my instincts have been warning me about Nikolai, and I should’ve heeded them.
I should’ve listened to that voice inside my head.
You’re not leaving.
Yesterday, his fervently uttered statement seemed romantic, if somewhat autocratic, his possessiveness a turn-on rather than reason for alarm. But now, with Alina’s revelations ringing in my ears and my no-longer-lost keys jabbing my leg through the pocket of my jeans, I can’t help but view his words in a different, infinitely more sinister light.
Was he never going to return the keys to me?
Have I been a de facto prisoner all along?
Frantically, I throw in the last of my clothes and zip the suitcase, then slip on my old sneakers and grab the envelope with the cash from the nightstand, stuffing it into my pocket. My heart is pounding so hard I’m sick from it, or maybe I’m just plain heartsick.
I just… didn’t want you to end up like her.
I still have no idea to whom Alina was referring; after the slicing-open bit, she became incoherent, sobbing until she passed out from exhaustion—and no wonder. It sounds as if she’s witnessed Nikolai murdering their father, and maybe this mysterious “her” as well. An ex-girlfriend of his? Or worse, their mother? Or was the “he killed her” part referring to their father, who’s allegedly also a monster?
I strain my memory to recall any mention of how Nikolai and Alina’s parents died, but there was nothing in the Russian articles I came across. Nikolai did react strongly when I asked about his parents that one time, but I attributed it to grief. But what if there’s more to it? What if there’s guilt and anger, the self-loathing of a man who’s done the unforgivable, committed the most heinous of crimes?
I don’t know if I believe it of Nikolai. I don’t want to believe it. Despite the darkness I’ve sensed in him, despite his savage hunger for me, I felt safe in his embrace last night. His roughness had been tempered with tenderness, his strength carefully leashed. And the way he cared for me afterward, washing me, feeding me, holding me so tenderly …
Is a monster capable of caring?
Can a psychopath fake emotion so well?
Maybe nothing Alina said is true. Maybe it’s a ploy to make me leave, to break up a relationship she’s disapproved of from the beginning. Maybe if I talk to Nikolai, he’ll explain everything, prove to me that Alina is simply ill, out of her mind with all those drugs.
It’s a tempting thought, so tempting that as I’m stepping out of my room, I stop and glance longingly down the hallway, where the door to Nikolai’s bedroom is still firmly shut. I want to trust him so badly, and under different circumstances, I would. If we were a regular couple hooking up in an apartment in a city, I would march down that hallway and demand an explanation, hear his side of the story before deciding what to do. But I can’t take that risk, not when I’m so completely in his power on this remote, highly secure estate.
Nobody knows I’m here.
Nobody will know or care if I disappear for good.
The only reasonable thing to do is to go now, to leave and assess the situation from a distance. Once I’m in a motel somewhere, I can reach out to Nikolai, let him know what happened and why I left. We can talk it out over email or on the phone, and I can do some more online digging, see if I can find out anything about his parents’ deaths.
This doesn’t have to be forever, just for now.
Just until I know the truth.
Still, my heart feels agonizingly heavy as I carry my suitcase down the stairs and to the garage entrance in the back. Not only will I miss Slava, but the mere possibility that I might never see Nikolai again fills me with cold, hollow dread. So does the knowledge that I’m going out there, where my mom’s killers are still hunting me. But I’ve evaded them before, and I have to believe that I’ll be able to do so again—especially with all that cash on hand. When I fled Boston, all I had were a couple of twenties in my wallet, plus the five hundred I withdrew from an ATM before ditching my debit card along with everything else that could be tracked.
