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“Does the name Elena mean anything to you?”
“It was my mother’s,” he says absently. “She knew… My first wife demanded we name Anna after her mother and grandmother. I always boasted that my next child would be named after mine.”
And maybe Marnie was more cunning in her deception than even Robert Winthorp knew. She named me Ellen, a subtle take on Elena—the name she only dared to call me on my birthday.
Along with another moniker.
“You called her Rose, didn’t you?” I ask.
His face falls and I almost regret mentioning it in the first place. “Yes. I called her Rose. They were her favorite—”
“You gave her the necklace, too,” I surmise. “The one Sergei gave to me. I know you’ve seen it.”
“I have,” he admits. “But it wasn’t his to give. I never knew she left it behind…”
I can tell through his tone alone that he would have never retrieved it himself.
“I guess she enjoyed manipulating us both,” I say.
Vanya looks at me sharply and steps away from the wall. With one hand, he parts my hair and cups my cheek. Then he wraps his arms around me, pulling me close.
“I knew from the moment I saw you who your mother was,” he confesses to my shock. “I thought maybe she took another man under the nose of her husband.”
Yet he still treated me with nothing but kindness.
“I would have deserved it. I let her go,” he continues. “It damn near killed me, but when she left, I let her go. But if I had known… I would have never abandoned you. Never.”
I don’t doubt him, and deep in my soul, I know that Marnie didn’t, either.
She knew a man like him would never throw his child to the wolves.
So she stayed silent.
But something in his tone sticks out, unwilling to fit in the puzzle Sergei and Mischa have forced me to put together.
“Left?” I pull back enough to meet his gaze. Instantly, I know he won’t lie to me. Not now. “You make it sound like she had a choice.”
In my own case, I didn’t choose to return to Robert—and Mischa, for all his twisted jealousy, had been willing to come after me.
“Why did you leave her there?”
“You don’t understand,” Vanya says. He lets me go and moves to the window, bracing his hands over the glass. With his head bowed, it’s easier than ever to see the pain—both emotional and physical—his body has endured throughout the years. “Marnie Winthorp wasn’t taken, or kidnapped, or whatever story you’ve been told. Shechoseto leave her husband—”
“What are you saying?”
“The truth.” He scoffs. “We didn’t ransom her. She allied herself with Sergei. And with me.”
Nothing in all of my twisted journey since being taken has affected me with the same hopeless sense of disorientation. Not Mischa. Or Nicolai’s attack. Or even the cruel reality that Robert may still be alive.
“She grew fearful of her husband. She wanted safety for her and her daughter. When she left, she tried to bring her as well, Briar, but something went wrong and the girl was left behind. Sergei perpetuated the rumor to protect her. In a way, I think he thought it served him as well, the image of a ruthless foe against the greedy Winthorp. But Marnie… All she wanted was a better life. A simple life.”
“And you trusted her?”
He nods. “She gave us more than enough information to prove her intentions. She was smart, so smart. And so cunning. She could inspire a fish to live on land just by telling him to. Last night at the council…” He sighs wistfully. “You looked so much like her.”
I try to reconcile this brave, bold woman with the fearful specter I knew who could show me affection only in secret.
I can’t.
