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The smell of spices fills the kitchen as the curry heats up on the stove, and by the time I’m pouring it over the rice, my stomach is growling. I eat one entire bowl without bothering to wait for it to cool down, burning my mouth in the process, and then make a second. I typically prefer depth of flavor over pure spice and heat, but I feel like I could drink a bottle of hot sauce right now. In fact, I walk to the fridge and drizzle hot sauce over the curry. The flavors shouldn’t go together at all, but it smells amazing, and tastes even better. I’m four bites into the strange concoction when a sudden realization washes over me, making me drop my fork.
I missed my period.
With everything going on with Luka, I didn’t think about it. Not really. I’d done my best to push our attempts at having a baby out of my head, and when we didn’t sleep together at all in the last month, I forgot about it completely. Nobody gets pregnant the first month they try. But, I did.
I don’t need to take a test or go to the doctor. I’m certain of it. It seems so obvious now. I’ve been nauseous and exhausted, which I blamed on my nerves and sleeplessness surrounding Luka’s absence, and I’ve traded in spicy wings and Asian curry for my usual Italian fare. Plus, most damning of all, my period is late. Two weeks late. And I’ve never been late before.
I want to call Luka and tell him, but I don’t have a way to get in touch with him. And I have no idea what his reaction would be. The idea to have a child together had been his father’s, and although Luka had agreed to it, he didn’t sleep with me during the last ovulation window. Did that mean he’d changed his mind? That he actually didn’t want a child? Would this news bring us closer together or drive the wedge even deeper?
Thoughts are filling my head too fast, and suddenly, the curry feels like a lead brick in my stomach. I scoop what is left in my bowl into the trash, and as I’m rinsing the bowl in the sink, I feel the food making its way back up. I barely make it to the bathroom in time.
I flush the toilet when I’m done and lean back against the cold tile wall. I want to cry and scream, but there is also a part of me that is happy. I’ve felt completely alone for weeks, and now, I’m not. I have someone in my corner. Someone on my team. My baby.
But what will happen when the baby is born? Will the Volkovs take it away from me? Will I be allowed to raise my child or, like Luka, will their childhood be nonexistent? Replaced with learning about the Bratva lifestyle? Will they wear a tracker bracelet, too?
That image alone—a tiny, baby-sized tracker bracelet—pushes me over the edge. Whether it is pregnancy hormones or a fit of hysteria, I decide I can’t stay. Luka is my child’s father, but I haven’t seen the real Luka in weeks. I can’t depend on him to look out for us, so I have to do what is best for me and my child.
I tug on my bracelet in a futile attempt to break it, but just like every other time I’ve tried, it stays resolute around my wrist. But this time, I don’t care. Luka can track me down if he wants, I have to leave. If he wants me to stay, he’ll have to chain me to a wall.
Because I’m getting the hell out of here.
22
Luka
I almost don’t check my phone when it buzzes. It’s late, and I’ve been getting so little sleep as it is—sleeping in a back office of the ice skating rink is not all it is cracked up to be—that I’m willing to let whatever emergency is making my phone blow up wait until morning. However, no matter how tightly I squeeze my eyes shut, I can’t ignore the possibility that it could be Eve.
She doesn’t have my phone number because I never gave it to her, but there are ways for her to find it. If she dug through my office long enough, she’d find a cell phone bill. Maybe she did that and is now calling me to tell me the house is on fire or someone has broken in or any of one thousand different terrible ways to die.
I shouldn’t care. Not after everything she has put me through, yet, I still drag myself off the tiny futon and over to where my phone is charging in the corner. As soon as I see the notifications on my phone, I realize it isn’t Eve calling or texting me about anything. Though, it does have to do with Eve.
She left the mansion.
After she first came to live with me, I jumped at every vibration of my phone, expecting it to be her trying to escape. After a while, however, I eased up. She wasn’t going anywhere. And for the brief moment we were actually happy together, I forgot about the bracelet entirely. But now, she finally did it. She finally ran.
I grab my keys and sprint through the dark ice rink for the front doors. The city streets are almost empty as I tear through red lights and blow through stop signs to get to her. I can see her flashing dot on the GPS, and she is moving slowly enough that I know she is on foot. She could have stolen one of my cars or called a taxi, but she was so desperate to leave, she decided to run.
The thought of her walking down the side of a road in the middle of the night curbs the fury racing through my veins. The thought that she was so desperate to leave that she fled on foot fills me with a strange kind of shame. Eve stayed when I pushed her up against a wall in the hallway and told her to never touch me again. She stayed no matter how many times I lashed out or pushed her away. So how bad had things become that she had finally cracked and fled?
By the time I get back to the mansion, the urge to follow her has disappeared. Maybe it’s better that she is gone.
The front gate is cracked open, and I can imagine her squeezing her body through it. I open it remotely and park in front of the house. I know she is gone, but I still climb the stairs and go immediately to her room.
The armoire is still full of clothes, which isn’t surprising. She never liked the things I’d bought for her, anyway. Everything looks normal. The bed is made and the clothes are all put away. In my head, I imagined her throwing her things wildly into a suitcase and running for it, but none of that was necessary. I’m so rarely ever home that Eve wasn’t worried about me walking in on her packing. She took her time.
I turn to leave and see the cookbook I just gave her sitting on the table next to the bed… with her wedding ring laid on top. The sight of the ring there, so lonely, stirs a weird pang in my gut.
I leave it there and check the rest of the house, though I know it is futile. The silence around me is eerie, and I almost forgot how lonely the mansion could be. How quiet. I’d grown accustomed to the sound of Eve plinking away at the piano and cooking in the kitchen. The sound of music floating out from under her bedroom door, even when we weren’t speaking, was a comfort to me. Now, there is nothing. Just the sound of my footsteps echoing off the marble.
Thinking back on it, I’m surprised Eve didn’t run after the lunch we had with my parents. It was my father’s idea to get Eve pregnant, and I was so upset by her betrayal that I didn’t fight him. In a strange way, it made sense. If she was pregnant, she’d have to be loyal to me. Which might or might not be true, but either way, the truth remains the same: I’m not fit to be a father. I’m not even fit to be a husband, so how could I raise a child?
Once I’ve finished my search of the house, I check the GPS tracker again. The dot is still flashing, growing further and further away with each second, but I turn off my phone and shove it in my pocket. Our marriage was an arrangement, anyway. Not real. Eve was never mine in the first place, and regardless of how I feel now, I’m better off without her.
* * *
Within the hour after I find Eve’s wedding ring on her bedside table, I’m back at Patrick O’Neill’s house. The pent-up energy inside of me needed to go somewhere, but I didn’t have another Irish mob member on my list. Patrick was the only person I’d visited who I hadn’t confirmed as useless or dead, so I head there.
He is in his office again when I arrive, and for reasons I’ll never understand, he never changed his locks. The key I stole before stills fits, and I slip in the same way I did before. This time, however, he jumps as soon as I step in the doorway. When he swivels around in his chair, I pull the trigger.
