Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
ALEKSEI
She’s lying beside me, staring into my eyes, and I should feel relief. Maybe even some sense of victory. But I don’t.
I know what will happen when I tell her what I came to say. She will walk away for the second time, and I do not know if I can take it.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, knowing me so well.
Two fingers press into my temple. “Fiona…” My hand moves gently across the curve of her bare back, fingers resting just beneath her shoulder blade. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
Her body stills as she lifts her head slightly, enough for our eyes to meet in the dim light of the room, and I see it. That flicker of dread. Like she already knows whatever I’m about to say will hurt.
“The reason I have always been one step ahead…” I begin, trying to convince myself that she will understand. “It’s because I put a GPS tracker in you.”
Her eyes grow, and she instantly pulls back as if I’ve struck her. “What?”
“I broke into your house after the trial and drugged your tea, just enough to make you sleep deeply, and I injected it in you.”
She recoils like she can’t stand the sight of me. “Where?”
My fingers brush the spot at the base of her neck.
Her hand flies to her mouth. “Oh my God…”
“It’s small. Buried under the skin. You never felt it.”
“Jesus Christ.” Her whisper slices through the room. “You…you put something inside me?”
I sit up, reaching for her hand, but she yanks it away before I can make contact. There’s nothing I can tell her that will make her see me as any less of a monster that I am.
“At first, it was because I wanted to know what you were planning for me after the trial. Then it became an obsession that turned into a need to keep you safe.”
“That wasn’t your choice,” she fires back, trembling with something deeper than rage. “You had no right.”
“No, I did not. I am a bastard, Fiona, but I’m a bastard who loves you.” When I cup her cheek, she flinches, and it guts me. “We can go and get it removed tomorrow. I swear to you, I will not do that to you anymore.”
She says nothing, just gapes at me like the walls of her world are tilting sideways. I’m tearing down everything she thought she knew.
“There is something else.” I force the words out. “That night when you were attacked in your home. That man who broke in…”
Her head snaps toward me, a palm splaying over her chest. “Please tell me you didn’t send him.”
“No.” I grab her hand in an instant, kissing the pads of her fingers with unflinching desperation. “I could never bring myself to do that.”
A pause swells between us.
“I was the one who got rid of him.”
Confusion flashes across her features. “What are you talking about?”
“The man who tried to take you. He wasn’t random. He was an enforcer for a rival Russian Mafia family. I was following him because I did not trust him after a business meeting he had with my family. I didn’t know it would lead to you, and I didn’t even know who you were.”
She shifts at that, her grip on my hand tightening just a fraction, a tremor running through her fingers.
“When I found you on the floor…” My jaw locks. “Something in me snapped. So I killed him.”
Silence swallows the room whole for a few seconds.
“I…I don’t know what to say.” Her lips quiver, and she still lets me hold her hand.
“I know, detka. It’s a lot.” My arm winds around her. “Once we got together, I did not tell you because I didn’t want to cause you more pain. I thought it would be easier this way, but I was wrong. I promised you honesty, and I plan to keep that promise.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I don’t want to hear any more tonight. I, uh…this is too much.”
“Alright.” My arm tightens around her. “Tomorrow, next week, whenever you are ready. You tell me when. You tell me what you need. For now, just let me hold you.”
I give her the chance to push me away, but she doesn’t. Instead, she lies back down, pulling the blanket up, facing away from me.
I ease in behind her close enough to feel the warmth of her body, grateful that she’s still here with me, which is less than I deserve.
FIONA
It’s been hours, but sleep doesn’t come. I stay on my back, staring at the ceiling like if I look long enough, it might change everything. Aleksei lies beside me, his breaths slow and steady, like he hasn’t just shattered everything all over again.
And maybe that’s the difference between us. He’s learned how to live with the chaos, while I’m still drowning in it.
I can’t stop thinking about everything he confessed. I wanted the truth. I thought I was ready. But now that I have it, I don’t know what to do with it.
My fingers drift to the back of my neck. Even though I can’t feel it, I know it’s there, implanted in me without my consent.
Closing my eyes, I try to get some sleep, but it’s impossible. I want to scream. To tear this room apart. To demand something from him, but I don’t even know what.
The truth is, I’ve always known exactly who he is. He hasn’t changed. I have.
And that’s what makes this hurt even more. Because even now, after everything he’s done, I still love him.
Maybe that makes me weak. Or foolish. Or worse…
Maybe it makes me just like him.
I hate him for what he did. But God, I still want him at the same time. And I don’t know how to reconcile the two.
When I look over, his face is half shadowed by the moonlight slipping through the windows. His lashes rest against his cheeks, and a strand of dark hair falls across his forehead. That tattoo on his chest rises and falls with each breath, like he’s finally at peace because I’m near.
But I don’t feel peace. I’m unraveling.
Peeling back the covers, I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, the floor cold against my skin. Getting to my feet, I slide into my sneakers that are tucked neatly in the corner and grab my phone off the nightstand before throwing on his oversized hoodie.
Maybe a quiet walk and some fresh air will help me sleep.
As I give him one last glance, a part of me considers climbing back into bed and acting like none of this ever happened. Just losing myself in his warmth and the fragile illusion that love is enough.
But it isn’t.
Without a word, I step out the door. The bodyguard is out cold on the chair, his head tilted back, completely unaware that I’m about to break Aleksei’s rule. I only plan to be gone for ten minutes, just enough time to help clear my head.
When the elevator arrives, I step inside, and it descends with a quiet hum. By the time the doors open into the lobby, the massive clock on the far wall is the only thing that seems awake. It’s barely five a.m., and the concierge doesn’t even lift his head from the desk as I pass.
I push through the exit, and the salty air slams into me, seeping straight through the hoodie.
God, I’ve always loved being near water. There’s something about it that never changes. Beautiful and terrifying in equal measure. It can calm you or pull you under without warning, and you never know which it’s going to be until it’s too late.
I follow the curve of the sidewalk toward the pier, the distant lights flickering through the dark like a trail of stars. The chill cuts through Aleksei’s hoodie as I hug it tighter around myself.
I wonder if he woke up. If he’s noticed I’m gone. If he thinks I ran.
I don’t want to run. I just need to breathe. To think. To find space between the wreckage of us and the pieces of myself I’m still trying to hold together.
This thing between us, it’s violent and beautiful, and some days I can’t tell if it’s love or war.
Is this what our life would be like? Him watching me all the time, under the guise of safety? Lying to me for my own good? Is that what it means to love a man who can destroy you and protect you with the same hands?
A woman jogs past, her shoulder brushing mine as she mumbles, “Excuse me.”
I offer a faint smile. “It’s okay.”
And for a moment, it is. Until tires screech against the pavement behind me.
A black van cuts across the street, swerving too fast, slamming to a stop beside me.
My body stiffens, my heart tripping over itself.
The door slides open, and two men jump out. I spin on instinct, ready to run, but one of them grabs me, fingers crushing into my arm, the other palm clamping over my mouth.
“Scream and I kill you.” His Russian accent makes the hairs on my arms stand up.
The rival Russian family Aleksei mentioned. Is this them?
Panic surges through me as I fight against his hold, but he’s too strong, dragging me backward like I weigh nothing. The woman who jogged past me jumps into the van and speeds off, the tires screaming across the pavement.
She was part of it? Oh God.
The second man catches my legs, pulling me toward the pier.
I fight with everything I have left. I twist, kick, claw, anything to break free. My nails rake down the face of the man behind me, and he grunts but doesn’t loosen his grip. When I bite the hand over my mouth, he smacks me hard across the face and stars burst behind my eyes.
“Let me go!”
“Zamalchi, suka.”
His palm covers my mouth again, and I keep thrashing even as he drags me closer to the edge. My only thought is that Aleksei has to know I’m gone. He has to be tracking me. The same device I hated him for hours ago might be the only thing that saves me now.
The pier is only a few feet away, and panic floods every inch of me. They’re going to kill me and throw me in the water.
Terror floods my veins, and all I can think about is my husband. The gentle way he touches me. The way his voice softens when he tells me he loves me. The way he promised to do better. The way I believe he can.
If this is how it ends, please let him know I tried to forgive him. That I wanted to stay.
I bite down again—harder this time, tasting blood—and kick the man in front of me. He growls, then slams his fist into my stomach so hard I can’t breathe.
“You try again,” he snarls, “and I tell boss you fall in water and drown.”
Pain radiates through me, but I don’t stop fighting. Not even when my vision blurs. Every second they yank me near the edge, fear builds like a scream stuck in my throat.
I’m not ready to die. Not without seeing him again.
Aleksei…
His name echoes in my head.
Please find me. Before it’s too late.