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“What’s so funny?” he mocks.
“That I once thought you could be the man in those letters.” I shake my head in bitter disappointment as I place a subtle hand on my seatbelt button. It doesn’t make a sound when I slowly release it. “What pretty words you wrote, Adrik. Too bad they were just false promises like everything else. Which is sad, because I loved that man who put his dreams and hopes for me to read in that red willow tree. I’m not sure how I expected you to be. Maybe this is how you always were. It sure does fit. You never did show up that night. That night you promised to take me away. I stood under that red willow tree for hours, waiting for you. You never came. You stood me up for someone else. Chose someone else. I’ve never felt like I mattered before. Not even to my best friend, but those letters you wrote to me made me feel like I was the most important person in the world. But you never really believed that. Did you?”
My words must shock him because his response to me flinging off my seatbelt and bolting out the car door in the middle of traffic, is low.
“Boss,” Anton cries over the noise of traffic. He must have gotten out of the car.
“Let her go,” I hear him respond.
Let her go.
Because that is what you do with pawns.
You sacrifice them and let them go.
* * *
ADRIAN
“You’re a fucking idiot, boss,”Anton chastises me as he gets into the car. Traffic has started moving and the honking has already started. I don't refute his statement because it's true. I am an idiot. Vanya doesn't have a choice. She will marry me, but she needs to know that there are boundaries. Rules in place. I can't love her. Because I thought I was in love once and it nearly cost me everything.
What pretty words you wrote, Adrik.
How does she know about the letters Ada and I wrote to one another?
Had Ada shown them to her? She’d never mentioned it.
You never did show up that night. That night you promised to take me away. You stood me up for someone else. Chose someone else.
Does she have me confused with someone else? She knows I wrote my letters to Ada under my Russian name. Was that something Ada shared as well?
I stood under that red willow tree for hours…
Ada and I hadn’t met at the red willow tree where we left our letters. She’d changed the location at the last minute stating that she was being watched. Followed. What had Vanya said about Ada? That she had become a maid for the Castellanos house at fifteen when her mother died.
Why would Castellanos marry off a maid?
He wouldn’t.
Then again, Vanya said she is certain that Ada was her half-sister. But she was also never recognized as a Castellano.
Picking up my cell, I call the last person on earth I want to talk to.
A Spiridakos.
It rings and then, “Haven’t you done enough, Volkov?”
“I can always do more,” I tell him with a shrug. “Or I can give you something you want if you provide me with some information.”
He pauses but I can hear the gears whirling in his head.
“And what do you have to offer?”
“Castellanos’s east front properties,” I propose. “That includes access to the docks.”
Another silent pause.
“What do you need?”
