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Everyone.
That’s the conclusion I reach every goddamn time. If it would mean keeping Cora safe and with me, I would have destroyed the world. I still might, if that’s what it takes to get her back.
Francia, to her limited credit, has kept a low profile. It’s not for my benefit; she just knows that I am one outburst away from snapping her spine like a stick over my knee.
The only reason she is even still breathing is because she knows where Cora is. All it would take is one whisper from her and Cora could be gone. Lost to me forever.
So I’ve let her putter around and play House, even when it makes me feel fucking murderous.
I avoid her and try to stay busy. Yasha is still with Jorden. She’s out of the hospital now, but she needs around-the-clock care. “The doctor is still worried about her sleeping,” he said when we talked last night. “Someone needs to be there to watch over her and make sure she… sleeps.”
“Then I’m not sure you’re the right guy for the job.”
“What?” he snapped, already frothing at the mouth with jealousy. “Why not? Who else should it be?”
“Probably someone who doesn’t want to keep her up all night.”
It took him a couple seconds to get the joke. Even when he did, he didn’t laugh. I don’t blame him. Nothing seems particularly funny anymore.
So as long as the world is on fucking fire, at least one of us should be with the woman we want to be with.
Suddenly, my office door flies open.
“Where is she?” Yasha asks. No knock. No greeting.
I frown. “I thought you were with Jorden.”
He waves me away and slams the door shut behind him. “She’s fine. She told me to come, actually. I was going to call, but she thought I should show you in person.”
“Show me what?” I growl.
Instead of answering, Yasha pulls a rolled-up newspaper out of his back pocket and throws it on my desk. “This.”
The newspaper is folded in half. An article about a record-setting fundraiser for a children’s hospital fills the bottom half of the page. I have a feeling that slice of wholesome good news isn’t what Yasha wanted me to see. So I flip the paper over…
… And nearly crumple it in my fist.
Cora fills the upper quadrant of the society page. Her dark hair is pulled into an elegant low bun just underneath today’s date in the top right corner. She has on a simple green dress—the same shade of emerald as her eyes—and heels. She looks like the housewife in a 1950s vacuum commercial.
Except there is no pearly white smile on her face. No full, pink cheeks. No joy. Her face is long and drawn. There are bruises under her eyes and she looks frail. I’m not sure if it’s possible to actually become noticeably thinner in a week, but she looks like she’s wasting away.
I don’t have to wonder why. The answer has his arm looped around her waist.
“Mikhail.”
I throw the newspaper off my desk. If I look at his plastic smile or his hand clutching her shoulder for another second, I’ll explode.
“For someone in the middle of an abduction, he isn’t in hiding,” Yasha says, pointing out the obvious.
“Of course not. Mikhail wants everyone to know they’re back together.”
Back together.I’m still trying to get used to the idea that Cora was ever engaged to Mikhail.
That night I caught him cornering her at The Coop, I had a feeling there was more to the story. At the time, I thought that, at worst, he was targeting her because he thought I was responsible for his sister’s disappearance. I figured his only connection to Cora was through mine and Katerina’s engagement.
But there was so much more going on that I missed. So much more that Cora didn’t tell me.
I blow out a breath. She’s alive. This photo proves it. That’s something to be grateful for, even in the midst of this shitstorm.
