Chapter 3 Bella
BELLA
My best friend Lydia is on the couch, binge-watching Love is Blind with the volume turned all the way down when I walk in.
She turns to me with a smile, and that smile instantly dies the moment she sees me.
"Jesus Christ, Bella."
She's on her feet before I can say a word. Her hands cup my face, and tilt it toward the lamp as she gets a better look at me.
"There's blood on your hands. There's blood on your clothes. What happened? Are you hurt?" The questions come faster than I can respond. Not that I have the energy to respond even if I want to. “Did someone—"
"I'm okay," I say. "Lydia, I'm—"
But I stop myself before the next word comes to my mouth. Because what exactly am I supposed to say? That I’m fine?
That I didn’t just survive a shooting? That I didn’t just see someone get killed in front of me? That I wasn’t saved by a man whom I’ve been violently having fantasies about all night?
A man, mind you, that I’m supposed to be destroying.
But as my thumb makes a tiny circle around the key still in my hands, I can’t help but notice that the blood on my fingers—Slava’s blood—has dried to rust.
Lydia stares at me, waiting for an answer. When I don’t say anything, she takes a step back, knowing that no amount of coaxing will get the answer out of me.
She’s known that ever since she left her mother’s house at seventeen and walked into ours. And she’s known that ever since the day I inadvertently set in motion all of the events that got me to where I am right now.
“How’s Anthony?” I finally ask.
"Sleeping like an angel. Has been since eight." Lydia's voice softens.
"I need to see him."
"Bella, he’s alright. You’re the one who’s—"
"Just for a second.” I put my hand up to stop her. “And then we can talk."
She doesn't stop me.
I walk down the hallway, shoes still on because I’m still in a half-dazed shock, until I reach the slightly open door of Anthony’s room. Lydia knows he likes it that way, because the hallway light can find him if he wakes up scared.
I nudge it open another inch wider, and let out a slow sigh of relief when I see his little body sprawled across the mattress the way only six-year-olds can manage.
One arm is flung over his head and the other clutches a stuffed dinosaur that's seen better days.
His dark hair is a mess against the pillow. His mouth is slightly open.
He looks so much like Luca. And tonight, I almost left him alone in the world when I’m all he’s got. I pull back from the door, close my eyes, and ball my hands into fists.
He could’ve woken up tomorrow morning to Lydia telling him that his last family member never came home.
But you’re still alive. You came home, I tell myself. And then, almost immediately, a tiny voice adds:
Because of Slava Romanov.
The irony isn’t lost on me. As much as I want to just collapse, I know that Lydia is still waiting for me to tell her just what the hell happened. So, I take a deep breath, blink back the tears threatening to overwhelm my eyes, and walk back into the living room.
When I get there, two shot glasses sit on the coffee table, filled to the brim with whiskey.
"Drink," she says. “Then talk.”
It’s a familiar ritual of ours. Has been ever since Luca’s funeral when I couldn't stop crying and Lydia couldn't stop holding me. Lydia knew exactly how much to let me drink and when to take it away so I wouldn’t spiral and seek comfort in it.
Perks of being a pharmacy tech, I suppose.
Spend enough time around people asking for ways to take away their pain, and you gain a knack for easing someone you care about out of it.
The whiskey burns going down, and for a moment it's the only thing I can feel.
Slowly, I tell her about the gala, about catching Slava in the service corridor with Vanessa Ashford-Price, about sending her away right before the bullets started flying, and about how Slava and I pulled each other to safety into that alley.
Lydia's expression is unreadable. "And then?"
"And then nothing. He asked me to bandage his wound and I did."
"That’s not all, is it?”
No, it’s not.
My hand slowly rises, running my fingers over the seven-pointed star pendant the way I always do when I’m anxious, and give it a squeeze.
"He saw my necklace." I take a slow breath. “And I think he recognized it."
"What do you mean, he recognized it?"
"I don't know." I shake my head. "We were close and he looked down. That’s when he saw it, and something changed the moment he did. He asked me where I got it. When I said it was a family heirloom, he looked at me like he’s seeing me for the first time."
I can still feel his fingers on my skin, and feel his touch and his eyes burning me up from the inside out. And suddenly, a different warmth—completely unrelated to the whiskey in my belly—courses through my veins.
“Like I’m a puzzle he wants to solve.”
"That's not good, Bella."
"I know that."
“And what happens if he starts digging into you?” Lydia leans forward, her green eyes sharp. "And instead of Bella Creminelli, he finds Bella Farnassi."
My real name sounds strange out loud. I've been Bella Creminelli for all these years that sometimes I can almost forget she’s a lie.
"He won’t," I say.
"But if he does? What do you think he’ll do to you?”
What would he do to me?
What do I want him to do to me?
The question sends a shiver down my spine that isn't entirely fear. Then something darker slithers into my mind as the fantasy comes rushing back, and I feel my thighs clenching together under the table.
My panties start turning traitorously damp. The air around my face grows warmer, and I lie to myself that it’s just because of the shot of whiskey I took.
"Bella." Lydia is staring at me.
I blink. "What?"
"Where did you go just now?"
"Nowhere." I reach for the whiskey bottle and pour myself another shot. "I was just thinking."
"About what?"
“About my meeting first thing in the morning with Slava tomorrow,” I choose to answer with a half-truth. “About my job.”
Lydia watches me for a long moment before speaking.
"You’re going to go back?" she asks. "After everything that happened tonight?"
“Yes,” I tell her. “Because if you haven’t noticed, Lydia, this job is the only way I have to pay the bills and the only way I have to avenge Luca."
"This job almost got you killed tonight, Bella! And all it has done is deepen your obsession about Slava Romanov.”
"I’m not obsessed about him!”
"Is that so? Because every conversation we have, Bella—every single one—almost always finds its way to being about him. What he did. What he said. What he might be planning. What you hope will happen to him. I swear, if it weren’t for the fact that I know how much you hate him, I might almost start believing that you want to fuck him. "
Be a good girl and open your mouth, Ms. Creminelli.
"He killed my brother, Lydia. He took away the last member of my family. Am I supposed to just—what, move on? Forget about it? Get a nice boyfriend and a book club membership and pretend my life didn’t go to hell?"
"Yes, Bella." Lydia's voice is gentle, which is worse than if she were angry. "Because what if what happened tonight is the universe warning you that you’ve gone too far. That in your obsessive need for vengeance, you’re actually risking your own life?"
I open my mouth to deny it, only to close it again when I can’t find a convincing enough argument.
She reaches for my hand and takes it. "Anthony needs stability. He needs you, Bella—present and alive, not chasing ghosts and trying to right the wrongs of a past that wasn’t your fault."
“But it was!” I pull my hand back and stand up. “My dad died because of me. Luca died because of me! I can’t let their deaths be for nothing.”
"They didn’t die so you can follow them to the grave, Bella."
The words land somewhere deep in my chest and lodge there like a knife. I don’t have a response. That’s always been one of Lydia’s best qualities: she can cut right to the chase with pinpoint accuracy and deny me any chance of a rebuttal.
Because she's right, and we both know it.
But I’ve come this far on my stubborn quest of vengeance, haven’t I? I’m so close that I can taste it. I can’t just give up now.
So, I jut my chin out the way Luca taught me, and the moment I do, I remember Slava’s winter-gray eyes staring down at me and the look of suspicion flitting through his eyes when he looked down at the necklace that Luca gave me.
And once again, unwanted desire slithers its way down my belly and refuses to leave.
“I’ll be fine, Lydia. I promise.”
“You’re getting in way over your head, Bella. And I’m scared for you.”
And she’s right about that. She should be scared for me. And if I still had an ounce of sense left in me, I’d take her advice and stop pursuing this madness. Because I am in over my head.
But I've never been very good at swimming toward shore.