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PROLOGUE
Helena
It’s only fitting that it should end like this.
The waves slam violentlyagainstthe cliffside below me. The white foam rises and falls onthe craggy rocks. The sea salt in the air is so thick that it irritates my skin, and thetears streaming down my cheeks do little to percolate throughthe grime. Adrenaline is pumping blood through my veins so strongly that I can hear it drumming an erratic beat in my ears.
For a moment it’s just me, the sea, and my terrified heart.
People like me don’t deserve a second chance at life.
I shouldn’t have survived the first time. That much is clear to me now. I have been fooling myself into thinking that I could ever have been able to start over again. I have spent the last handful of months living on borrowed time. There's an all-consuming terror that crawls down my throat and grips my spine like a vice, but there's also a sense of calm. It’s harder to find… but I’m holding on to it.
I muststep forward. I have to force myself to take that final, long step into the water below, and everything will be over. All of the anguish and deception. No more duplicity, no more lies.No more living a double life, keeping track of who knows what. I don't have to watch my tongue and carry the weight of so many secrets allat once.
I just have to take one last step, and finish what Nikolai started.
“Don’t—” a deep male voice comes from behind me. A familiar voice. But the pain and longing that fuels the word is something new, something desperate. Neither one of us can afford desperation now.
My eyes close and my fists ballat my sides. If I turn around and face him, my cowardice may triumph. I can feelDaniel's beautiful and cryptic eyeson my back. It would be so easy to run to him and let him wrap his arms around me until I am completely convinced that things will get better—that we can solve this mess together.
“Don’t come any closer, Daniel.” The winds are so loud and ferocious that I doubt for a moment that he even heard me.
“Come away from the cliff’s edge, Helena. Right now.” Daniel’s voice is firm and unyielding.
“I can’t keep living like this!” I shout to the ocean.
The flowing skirt of my dress whips around my legs and does nothing to stop the cold air from biting into my skin. I glance over my shoulder at Daniel’s impossibly handsome face. His dark brow furrows in worry for me. He is keeping just enough distance between us to avoid startling me into jumping.
“I would rather die than do this for even one more day, Daniel!” My shoulders soften as I wrap my arms around myself. “I’m so tired of this… I’m tired of hurting everybody that I care about. I’m tired of constantly living a lie! This is the only solution. Can’t you see that?” I plead with him to understand. I’m at the end of my tether. Of all the people left in my wretched life, he is the most important. Hemustunderstand.
“No, it’s not. I have already handled everything, Helena, I have a plan. You trust me, don’t you?” Daniel shakes his head as he speaks. I know that he’s not going to stop. He’s going to keep trying until he gets his way. I hate that this hurts him. I hope he knows that I never meant to hurt him.
“I won’t let you pay for my mistakes. I can’t keep pushing you into a corner. We both know it will end with you being forced to put me down, Daniel. It can’t be you.” Tears slide down my face anew as his eyes widen in understanding. “Did you think that I didn’t know what they would make you do?”
I wish there was another way for me to express my feelingsto him. I should have told him sooner, under better circumstances, but this is my last chance. Nikolai's men will never cease huntingme. Not until he has my head. The Russian Mafia wants me to pay for the crimes I committed. I can't even say I'm not deserving of death. At the very least, I'm prepared this time. This time it will bemychoice, and it will not be by Nikolai’s hands.
I still don’t know how he found out what I did to his father, but it doesn’t matter. I took his life regardless. My mind flashes back to the night that Nikolai, my first fiancé, attempted to end my life.
It’s November. I hear Nikolai’s car screech into the driveway despite the snow on the ground. Alone in his family home outside of Moscow, there isn’t much I can do. I hope that if I gather my personal effects quick enough, I will be able to steal one of his cars and get the hell out of his mansion before he finds me.
My need for revenge trapped me once. I won’t let that happen again.
Nikolai catches me packing. He comes tearing into the room like some sort of demon. He is the sort of man that commands notice and attention. His large, intimidating presence fills a room without him ever having to say a word. The very thing that had captivated me at the start of our relationship is now a source of terror. I’ve never been on the receiving end of his wrath before—accusations spewed from his lips like knives that strike me and burrow deep into my skin. I don’t have a chance to fight back; it wouldn’t have done any good anyway.
I feel the freezing iron railing of the balcony dig into the backs of my hips. I feel the snow collecting in my hair. I'll never forget the look of pure contempt on my fiancé's face as he chases me toward our balcony. His sneer of derision will live emblazoned on the backs of my eyelids as a constant reminder of how everything has gone to hell.
My whole body scrapes against the metal railing as I topple backward over it. The bottom of my stomach feels as though it has fallen out of me—like I was briefly weightless. My life doesn’t flash before my eyes. I don’t have some profound realization about all of the things that I will never get to do. Everybody who talks about having a near-death experience always says that those things are supposed to happen. For me, there was only fear.
Nikolai watches me fall. I lock eyes with him as he smugly watches me plummet two stories down to the frozen grounds of the garden.
The crack of my skull against the pavement doesn’t hurt, but it does feel cold. Even now, I can still clearly remember the jarring sensation of my spine impacting the ground as Nikolai watched the life fade from me.
Then there was nothing.
At least I know the balcony fall will be nothing compared to this. Hopefully, the rocks toward the edge of the cliff will make my death swift.
“I want you to know that in spite of it all, Daniel, I never pretended with you. I never lied about what we had. It was real. At least, it was real for me.”
