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I can only hope I’ve earned his honesty.
“Did you?” I press to break the silence.
“Yes,” he finally admits. His voice is so hollow that I barely recognize it. “I knew her.”
“H-how?” Those vicious scenarios Mischa posed creep into my thoughts.Brutalized. Kidnapped. Raped.
I squeeze my eyes shut, desperate to fight the onslaught that I know is coming. But it’s too late. More tears creep beneath my eyelids and spill down my cheeks in spite.
“You’re crying.” A gentle thud rattles the door as if he braced his hand against it from the other end. “Ellen…”
“Did you hurt her?” I ask, choking my sobs down. I can’t seem to breathe again until his heavy sigh slips through the crack in the doorway.
“Never,” he swears. “I would have never hurt her—”
“Did you hate her? She was your enemy,” I point out. Before he can reply, I add, “Did…did you love her?”
Seconds of silence trickle into minutes.
“Tell me about her,” I demand, changing tack again. “Please.”
“She was brave,” he says haltingly. “So damn brave. You wouldn’t expect it, coming from a tiny thing like that. She was beautiful too…” The door bows against my back as if he’s leaning against it from the other end. “So damn beautiful. I would never hurt her.”
“But you kidnapped her,” I insist. “Or your brother did, or…” I bury my face in my hands, digging my fingers into my temples. “It doesn’t matter. You took her and then she escaped. But how? Why?” It takes everything I have to bite back the most important question of all.
Why did you abandon me?
“I don’t know what you’ve been told,” Vanya says, as gentle as always. “Some of it, admittedly, might be true. But some…” He sighs again and the wood creaks, protesting against more pressure exuded on it from the other side. I wonder if the damn thing will give way altogether. He’ll break through.
Just as the hinges start to squeal, the pressure recedes and the wood jarringly snaps back into place.
“Just know this,” he says thickly. “She was never my captive. Not for one second. And she didn’t escape. I let her go—” His voice breaks, but he grunts, regaining his composure. “I lethergo. Goodnight.”
“Wait.” I scramble to my knees and reach for the doorknob—but he’s already gone and my eyes continue to overflow.
No man on Earth could fake the pain in his voice—or the raw honesty, either.
No matter the circumstances of their relationship, I don’t doubt that he let Marnie go.
Or thatshewent back to Robert Winthorp, Sr. of her own accord.
Which means…shelet me live as her dirty, unwanted secret.
And maybe most telling of all…
If Sergei wasn’t lying, then she never even told my father aboutme.
