Chapter 35
Chloe
The yellow police tape crisscrossing my fence appears fake in the morning light, an unnatural boundary marking what used to be my safe haven.
My stomach drops as Kolya pulls the stolen SUV to a stop half a block away. He kills the engine with a soft click that seems too loud in the quiet neighborhood.
I release a shaky breath. Everything looks the same, though nothing is.
Kolya scans the street with that familiar predatory focus. The bruises on his face have deepened to purple, a painful testament to what he endured to find me. “We go in the back. No time to waste.”
I nod, hating the way this vehicle exposes us. Every second we linger increases the risk of someone recognizing me, calling the police, and raining down more trouble than we can handle.
And Roman’s still waiting for those diamonds.
The thought raises tiny hairs on the back of my neck.
We exit the SUV and quietly ease the doors shut.
Kolya leads the way through a neighbor’s yard, skirting the edge of their property to avoid prying eyes on the street.
I follow closely, feeling like an intruder in my own community.
My feet, now in a pair of sneakers Vanya produced from his seemingly endless supply of emergency items, tread silently across the familiar ground.
The back of my house comes into view. My small yard with its oak trees, the peeling paint on the door frame, the window above the sink where I’ve spent countless mornings bird-watching while drinking coffee.
My cottage.
The yellow tape stretches here, too, a stark reminder that this place isn’t the same home I’ve lived in for years.
It’s evidence. A crime scene. A trap.
Despite his injuries, Kolya crouches by the back door with fluid movements. Jittery, I keep vigil, scanning the neighboring yards and windows. He works on the lock with a thin piece of metal that he produced from somewhere in his pockets.
In seconds, the door gives way with a soft click.
“That was fast!” I clap my hand over my mouth. Way too loud.
He nearly laughs while shaking his head. “Not my first break-in.”
I can attest to that.
When we slip through the door, the scents of my cottage hit me with unexpected force. Cinnamon from the plug-in air fresheners, laundry detergent, the faint mustiness of the old wooden floors.
Then the foreign tang of strangers disrupts the familiar air.
The kitchen is a disaster.
Drawers pulled out and upended, their contents scattered across countertops and floor. The refrigerator door stands open, food spoiling on the shelves. Cabinet doors hang at odd angles, some ripped completely from their hinges.
This was no careful inspection. This was violence, rage, and frustration.
The perpetrators didn’t find what they were searching for, and they made sure I’d know they were here.
“Falcones.” Kolya’s rigid with anger. “No finesse.”
My carefully constructed safety gone, tossed like a salad. Torn from beneath me faster than quicksand.
We move through the kitchen into the living room as tears prick my eyes.
The destruction is even worse here.
Colorful throws slashed. Stuffing erupting from the cushions of my comfy sofa. Books ripped from shelves, with their pages torn out and crumpled and their spines cracked. Picture frames smashed, the photos inside trampled underfoot.
My life, dissected and discarded by strangers hunting for twenty million in diamonds.
“Those jerks better not have damaged any of my library books!”
The globe bar stands in the corner of the room. The world map, with its aged colors and detailed cartography, gleams in the dim light filtering through the closed blinds. Untouched amid the destruction of my home.
Beautiful.
Expensive.
A perfect Trojan horse.
Not a gift. A bomb, ticking away while I admired its craftsmanship, showed it off to friends, and dreamed about traveling.
Kolya approaches the globe cautiously, circling like a soldier assessing a potential threat. His scarred hand runs over the lacquered surface, fingers tracing coastlines and oceans in search of something beyond the visible.
He crouches, pulling out his phone to illuminate the details of the globe’s construction. His face is a mask of concentration, all emotion locked away behind those dark eyes.
My breath catches, suspended between inhalation and release, as Kolya shifts the flashlight to focus on a specific point on the globe’s surface. He stills, his finger hovering over a tiny, almost imperceptible speck near the Bahamas, the spot no bigger than a pinprick.
I squat beside him. “Where’s that?”
He taps his phone screen until a map appears. His thumb and forefinger zoom in on a specific location that he compares to the spot on the globe, and a chill runs through me at the intensity in his expression.
“It’s Isla de Huesos. The island you were on.”
My legs buckle, and I collapse on the floor beside the globe. The world tilts.
I never searched for the island’s location. Seeing how small it is, how insignificant on the planet… How could such a miniature fleck of paradise ruin so many lives? For so many years?
Kolya examines the heavy wooden base that holds the world aloft. His motions become even more careful, more precise.
“Don’t move.” His sharp command freezes me in place as he shines light at a thin, almost invisible metallic line running from the top of the globe to the South Pole, where the stand connects.
Kolya’s expression hardens. “It’s wired.”
“A bomb? What the fuck?” The words burst from me, a whispered shout that’s too loud in the tense silence.
Kolya’s eyes sparkle as they connect with mine. “Second time.”
I frown. “What?”
“Pretty certain this is only the second or third time I’ve heard you curse.” The corner of his mouth twitches, but he’s already shifting back to the matter at hand. “Not a bomb. Alarm. If we open this, whoever put this here will know.”
The implications sink in slowly, then all at once. The globe wasn’t just a hiding place. It was a trap. A monitor. A way to know exactly when someone found the diamonds. Which I might have done on my own if I’d have put two and two together and studied the damn island in the first place.
Or one of my kids. Whoever left me the globe brought it to the classroom. Any of the students could’ve triggered the stupid thing. An anonymous gift? Of this caliber? How stupid was I?
No more.
“Someone sent this to me.” My volume rises despite my effort to keep it down. “Sent this to destroy my life. They sent a trap into a classroom filled with young children.”
Why?
Rage, both foreign and familiar, builds beneath my ribs. It’s the same fury that consumed me in the safe house. The fury that began on the island all those years ago as my world collapsed into chaos and violence and helplessness.
But I’m no longer that child hiding under a porch, waiting for salvation or death.
I’m a woman who survived kidnappers, snipers, abduction, torture, and a warehouse fire. I stared the darkness down and walked away.
I approach the fireplace with trembling hands. The anger is almost more than I can bear.
I lift the iron poker. The heavy weight satisfies me in a way I’ve never appreciated before.
Kolya straightens, tension radiating from every line of his body. “Chloe. What are you doing?”
I clutch the poker tighter. Whatever he reads in my expression prevents him from speaking another word. The old Chloe would’ve been horrified by the thought of destroying this priceless gift. The old Chloe would’ve worried about the mess, the noise, the consequences.
The old Chloe is gone, though, burned away in Gio’s warehouse along with my illusions of safety. “Don’t worry. I know how to open it without using the latch.”
Kolya falls back as I swing the poker, muttering what sounds like a Russian curse.
Fueled by fifteen years of suppressed trauma and rage, my first blow strikes hard, denting the crap out of the world. The lacquered surface splinters, but the damage isn’t enough to satisfy me. I want to watch continents, oceans, and islands explode across my living room floor.
Instead of fear, only cold, clear certainty courses through me.
Let them come. I’m done hiding.
This ends now.