Chapter 28
Chloe
I sigh beneath the shower spray and run a soapy cloth over my skin.
I desperately needed this. The shower, yes, but also a few minutes away from Kolya.
His intensity distracts me, and I wanted a moment alone to think about him.
Kolya. Nikolai Ilyin.
Monster. Protector. Jailer.
What do I call him now? “Enforcer” echoes in my mind, but that sounds too cold and clinical to suit the man who shared my bed. His confession hangs in the air, not dividing but connecting, each terrible truth a thread binding us together.
Now it’s my turn to be honest.
I climb out of the shower, yank Kolya’s shirt over my head, and slip back into the bedroom.
He waits with two coffee mugs on the nightstand, and butterflies flutter through my stomach. He’s so sweet, in his quiet way.
He offers his hand, and I place my palm in his, allowing him to tug me back beneath the blankets to down my caffeine.
We sip quietly. He reclines against the headboard and drapes one arm around my shoulders.
After one last fortifying swallow, I set down my empty mug. “I want to tell you about the island. About what I remember.”
As he waits for me to continue, the hand stroking my hair pauses.
“It was supposed to be special.” I inhale his scent—sweat and sex and distinctly Kolya—and gather my courage. “A once-in-a-lifetime trip. My parents weren’t rich. Dad was a high school math teacher, and Mom worked admin at an insurance company. But they’d saved up for years.”
I shift my weight without breaking contact. His dark eyes stay intent and focused.
“They wanted to give me something extraordinary. We’d never stayed anywhere fancier than a Holiday Inn before.” The bittersweet memory surfaces. “When we arrived at the beautiful resort, all white stone and blue water, I thought we were in the wrong place. The kind of place you see in magazines.”
Kolya’s fingers resume their gentle stroking, encouraging me without words. Warmth spreads all the way to my heart.
“The day it happened, they bought me a new dress. White with little yellow flowers. I felt like a princess.” I close my eyes, the image clear and painful. “My hair was in these perfect little ringlets. Mom spent an hour with the curling iron. She kept saying I looked like a doll.”
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly tight.
The good memories—precious things soured by what followed—are almost harder to bear than the bad ones.
“That night, we went to dinner at the fancy restaurant in the resort. White tablecloths, crystal glasses. I’d never seen so many forks before.
I kept asking my dad which one to use, and he kept whispering that he had no idea either. ”
Kolya’s lips brush my forehead, and I draw strength from the featherlight touch, from him.
“It was so nice. I had chocolate mousse for dessert. And then…” My mouth dries, the phantom taste of chocolate bitter on my tongue.
“And then everything just…exploded. At first, I thought it was fireworks. Until people started screaming. Running. Dad grabbed my hand, dragged me from my chair, and we started running too. I didn’t know why.
There was this…crush. So many bodies pushing toward the doors.
I was holding my dad’s hand, and then I wasn’t. ”
Kolya’s arm squeezes me, providing an anchor amid the memory’s storm.
“Go on, Chloe.”
My name on his lips rescues me from the past. I give him a grateful smile and close my eyes.
The memory fragments, splintering into sharp, bleeding edges. “I remember looking up, trying to find my parents in the crowd. Everyone was so tall, and I was so small. I kept calling for them, but it was so loud. So many people yelling.”
My nails dig into Kolya’s chest, but he doesn’t flinch or pull away.
“A body slammed into mine, and then I was on the floor, people stepping over me, on me. I crawled under a table and tried to make myself even smaller.”
My rasped breaths fill the room, too fast and shallow, just like they were that night. My lungs constrict, choking me.
Kolya’s hand journeys to my back and rubs slow circles, easing the tension bit by bit.
When I can breathe more easily again, I inhale a mouthful of his scent, holding him on my tongue. “I stayed there until the room emptied. It eventually grew quiet enough for me to hear the fire crackling. The tablecloth was starting to burn, so I crawled out. And that’s when I saw… I saw…”
“Take your time.” His voice rumbles against my cheek. Encouraged, I snuggle closer.
“Bodies. On the floor. Some of them were burned. Some had…holes. There was so much blood. So much red against all that white.” I shudder at the phantom stickiness on my hands, my knees.
“I tried not to look as I crawled past them, but I couldn’t help it.
Women in beautiful dresses. Men in suits.
Their faces frozen in screams. Shining in the firelight. ”
Kolya stiffens, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“I was so scared. I just wanted to find my parents. By the time I made it outside, it was raining. Storming. The strong wind kept knocking me down. Lightning made everything too bright, then too dark.” The panic flares in my chest in an uncontrollable tide.
My volume rises to match. “I was sure I was going to die. I thought my parents were already dead. I thought everyone was dead except me, and soon I would be too.”
Hot tears spill onto my cheeks.
Kolya’s gentle thumb brushes them away. “And yet you kept moving, even though you thought you lost everything. That takes strength.”
True. Though I considered other options. Giving up. Curling into a ball. Laying down and dying. Crying for my mom. Waiting for Dad to save me.
But I didn’t. I got up and…
With renewed conviction, I continue. “I couldn’t see anything.
Couldn’t hear anything except the storm and the gunshots.
I was running blind, falling, getting up, running again.
And then I saw the porch of one of the beach bungalows.
I snuck under it and pressed myself against the foundation.
The wood slats were so close together, I felt hidden. Safe.”
He kisses the top of my head. “So smart. Even as a child. Getting someplace safe, protected, away from the storm, fire, and gunshots. Exactly what you should’ve done.”
He tucks the blankets around me, providing me with added protection I could’ve used back then.
I shoot him an appreciative glance right before the memory seizes me again. “That’s when I saw him. A man, running low to the ground. He had a gun. He was moving so fast, but so…controlled. Like he knew exactly where he was going and what he was doing.”
Kolya’s breathing stutters.
“He saw me.” The image crystallizes as I speak. “He looked right at me. Our eyes met through the slats. I thought…he would shoot me. Or grab me. But he just kept running.”
I push myself up on one elbow and peer directly into Kolya’s eyes.
“I’ve tried to remember his face for fifteen years.
Sometimes, I think I can see it clearly.
Dark eyes. Hard jaw. Other times, it’s just a blur.
But his expression… That I remember. Not cruel.
Not kind. Just…assessing. Like he was trying to decide if I was a problem. ”
Kolya’s face reveals nothing, but his hand stills on my back.
“After that, I just…waited. For hours. The storm got worse, then better. The gunshots stopped. I was soaked through, freezing, too terrified to move. When dawn came, I crawled out. There were more bodies on the beach, along with a whole bunch of debris. People in uniforms. Police. Resort staff. And others in suits. Like the people from the restaurant.”
Kolya pulls me closer, using his body to shield me against memories that can’t hurt me anymore. But for a long time, they did hurt me. They shaped me into who I am.
“I just stood there, gaping at all the dead people. I couldn’t cry anymore.
Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t do anything.” My voice cracks, and I have to force the words past the lump in my throat.
“A woman found me. One of the cleaning staff who’d been hiding too.
She took me to what remained of the hotel lobby.
That’s where the rescue workers were gathering survivors.
From there, an ambulance carried me to a hospital on the mainland. ”
The rest of the story spills out in a rush, words I’ve never spoken aloud tumbling from my lips.
“I didn’t speak for days. Maybe weeks. Not a word.
Just sat in the hospital bed, staring at the wall.
They thought I might be in shock…might never speak again.
My parents showed up then, out of the blue.
They weren’t there…and then they were. They’d made it off the island on one of the first boats.
They thought I died.” A bitter laugh escapes me.
“Maybe they hoped I did. Would’ve been easier for them. ”
Kolya’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“They never talked about it or asked about what I went through or saw. It was like…they wanted to pretend none of it ever happened. But they couldn’t, because I was a walking reminder.
” I wipe at fresh tears with the back of my hand.
“They started fighting. All the time. About everything. About me.”
Kolya’s arms tighten around me. “Fools.”
He has no idea how right he is.
“Less than a year later, they divorced. And then they fought over custody. Not because they both wanted me, but because neither of them did.”
“I bet you just felt that way. That’s a common reaction in kids when their parents fight.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I could feel that I was a burden to them. And I tried so hard to be happy. To be good. I thought if I was cheerful enough, helpful enough, perfect enough, they’d stop the divorce and stay together.”
The costly admission drains something vital from my chest. But there’s relief, too, in finally exposing this old wound and hopefully allowing myself to heal.
His lips graze my temple, but I barely notice.
“It didn’t work. Nothing worked. Eventually, my mom got primary custody, and my dad moved across the country.
He sends the occasional birthday card. Mom remarried when I was sixteen and moved to Arizona with her new husband.
I lived with them for a couple of years until I started college.
At first, I didn’t understand my parents at all.
Giving up on the people you love when life gets hard. ”
“Weakness isn’t inherited, Chloe. It’s a choice.”
“Well, I choose to be strong and stand by the people I care about no matter what life throws my way.”
Kolya’s hand cradles my cheek and tilts my face up to meet his gaze. His eyes burn with a fierce protectiveness. “You deserved better.”
“The point is, that night changed everything. Not just for your people. For me too. But I never saw any diamonds. Any gems at all. I didn’t take anything. I wasn’t given anything. It was just me in my dress, covered in blood. They cut it off me at the hospital, so I didn’t even keep that.”
“I believe you. But for some reason, MJ connected the diamonds to you. Maybe because you were a witness. Or perhaps someone else used your name, your identity.”
“Stole a nine-year-old’s identity? To do what?”
He shrugs, his hand returning to my head and stroking gently. “What you’ve told me… It’s the first real account I’ve heard of what happened. Roman doesn’t talk about it. No one does. It’s just ‘the chaos on the island.’ A ghost story from our past.”
I nestle closer to him, suddenly cold despite his warmth. “And now the ghost is haunting us.”
“Yes. But, together, we can discover why.”
Together. The word settles inside me, sealing the hollow spaces. For so long, I’ve been alone with these memories, alone with my fear. Surrounded by friends, colleagues, and students, but still fundamentally isolated by the wall of my trauma.
Not anymore.
Not with Kolya.
Monster. Protector.
Mine.