Chapter 32
Paige
I search for the warm spot in my bed, but my fingers slide across cool sheets. Awareness slowly filters in, along with the midmorning light. The water heater’s familiar tick. The distant rumble of traffic on the street below.
And an empty bed around me.
Not just vacant, but cold. Vanya’s been up for a while.
“Vanya?” His name sounds rough, probably from me screaming in the night air.
No answer.
I sit up, blinking, and then I peek out the window. The sun’s halfway up the sky. I’ve slept the morning away. No wonder Vanya isn’t nearby.
Could he be in the shower?
I listen for the patter of running water but hear nothing.
Maybe he’s cooking.
Oh, no.
What food did I have in the fridge the night I didn’t come home? How long ago was that, anyway? A week? So much has probably gone bad by now…
No noises emerge from the kitchen.
The apartment is quiet. Too quiet.
Did he go out for groceries?
Sighing, I start to hop out of bed and spot a stack of cash on the nightstand.
My stomach twists.
A note sits under the money. Oh, sure. He wouldn’t want me to worry after waking up and finding him gone. And he just put the cash here because he didn’t need money wherever he was going.
Yeah.
Of course.
The lie is so sweet, I keep it next to my heart as I snatch the note.
His handwriting is elegant, just like him. I smile a little, smoothing my fingers over the ink.
Then I read the note.
Read it again. And again.
As if the words aren’t already embedded in my mind, heart, and soul.
You were wrong…
A fun distraction…
The meaning is brutally clear.
He’s gone.
To add insult to injury, he gave me money like I’m some kind of whore.
A woman whose body he used to get what he wanted. Not just sex, but my memory and knowledge too.
No.
I stop that thought in its tracks.
I refuse to believe that’s what this is. Vanya wouldn’t use me like that. He’s not that kind of man. He never treated me like a transaction or made me feel cheap.
Reckless and alive? Yes, but always valued.
So why leave money and this awful note? Why leave at all? I read through the message one more time, my heart aching like someone’s sawing through it with a dull, rusted blade.
The pain has my hands shaking so violently, the note flutters free from my fingers. I feel disconnected, as if my brain’s sending signals that my body’s receiving through water.
Coffee. I need coffee.
Yeah, that explains why I’m so weak and scattered.
Once I ingest some caffeine, I can figure out what this all means. There must be some puzzle piece I’m missing.
The French press is still in the drain board. I fill the kettle and stand and wait for the water to boil while my mind spins in circles.
My hands won’t stop trembling as I go through the motions like I’m watching a stranger do them.
Water. Grounds. Pour. Wait. Press.
This was a fun distraction…
I clutch the counter and force myself to breathe—in through my nose, out through my mouth—the way my therapist taught me years ago when the panic attacks controlled my every waking moment.
Except this isn’t a panic attack.
This is different. A life-changing shift as my heart tries to crawl out through my throat.
He left.
Just up and left.
Or maybe…
Maybe he got what he needed from the information I obtained for him.
Before going to bed, we uploaded the flash drive to Emil’s server. Emil could’ve had enough time to download the files, sort through them, and figure out who donated that book.
Vanya could already have his answer and no longer need me.
The possibility sinks in my stomach like lead.
I pour coffee with shaking hands. Black. No sugar. The same way Vanya drinks his.
But what about the book?
Even if he knew who sent the collection, he was obsessed with the physical book. Not just the stories.
He can’t get to where it’s stored by himself, unless he stole the security code for the locking mechanism the same way Emil did for the investment firm.
Damn him! Was he playing me the whole time? Was none of this real for him?
As much as my heart hurts, I should check in with work.
Gripping my mug, I carry it to the coffee table where my laptop sits, still plugged in.
The screen glows to life. With my fingers playing through the familiar dance, I sign in to my work email. Because I’ve been gone for nearly a week, I find a stack of new messages. Three at the top catch my attention.
The first is from human resources. Terrible enough on its own, but the subject line is even worse.
Termination of Employment.
My stomach drops as my morning goes from shitty to catastrophic in mere seconds. No sense burying my head in the sand.
I swallow a gulp of coffee, exhale, and open the email. The words blur together at first, then sharpen into focus with sickening clarity.
Following an internal investigation into discrepancies in your employment records, we have determined that you falsified information on your application. Specifically, you claimed to possess a master’s degree in library science from—
The living room tilts around me, and I have to grip the edges of the coffee table to steady myself.
They know about my forged credentials.
How?
I don’t have to wonder long.
Vanya.
He used the blackmail information against me even though I did everything he wanted. I fell for his deception. I let him inside my carefully constructed walls, and now…
Tears sting my eyes.
I wipe them away, furious at him, at my job, but mainly at myself. I will not cry over that charming, traitorous bastard.
The second email comes from an account with a familiar string of numbers and letters. The same anonymous person who emailed me before, asking about my first lie. The one I blamed on Vanya, along with the pen and decapitated sparrow.
Except Vanya denied doing any of that. With everything that happened, I’d forgotten.
I almost skip it until I spot the timestamp, which shows the message arrived minutes before the termination notice.
The email loads.
I tried to save you, Paige. To help you escape from Vanya and all his sick games.
I even sent you my phone number, but you never called me.
We could have worked something out between us.
If you had given me a chance, I could’ve offered much more than the Kozlovs.
Now you don’t even have a job. Such a shame Roman’s fixer couldn’t even protect that.
He can’t protect anything. And now, he’s left you.
That’s all right, love. Leave Vanya to me.
Tonight, he’ll strut right into my hands.
Even without a sign off, I know who sent this.
Gio Falcone.
I’m sure of it.
My heart pounds in my throat. I attempt to swallow and think through all the pain.
Vanya used me and abandoned me. Why should I care about him in any way?
No. Screw what he wrote. That note’s not like him. I do know him, and I must be missing something.
I need more information.
Finishing the last of my coffee, I scroll to the third email, this one from Dr. Abernathy. He sent it two hours ago, sometime after the other two.
Dear Paige,
The Board are fools who wouldn’t know a priceless artifact from a grocery list, and they’ve just discarded their most valuable one. Your real gift was never a degree, but your rare ability to read what was actually on the page. And, more importantly, what wasn’t.
I’ve taken the liberty of reaching out to several colleagues in my network. You’ll find their contact information attached. Any one of them would be lucky to have you, and I’ve told them as much.
At least you got out before this awful donor reception tonight. It seems we have a new benefactor, and I’m expected to roll out the red carpet. Some Italian bigwig, though I don’t much care for him. The more I think about it, I’m happy you won’t be here for that.
Please take care of yourself.
Yours in scholarship,
Dr. Abernathy
A donor reception? With an Italian bigwig?
My job is history because Vanya’s nemesis, Gio Falcone, the guy who sicced his mercenaries on us, likely ratted on me. He also set himself up with the Board at the library.
This is why Vanya left to finish the mission himself.
He wanted to keep Gio and men like him away from me.
Except…
Vanya’s walking straight into Gio’s trap.
Maybe Vanya already knows. Perhaps that’s why he left, to keep me far away from the cross fire when…
When what?
When Gio kills him?
I can go back in my cage now. Accept the money. Disappear like Vanya wrote. Find a new city. A new library. A new identity. Rebuild the walls of rules higher and thicker than before.
Or…I can plot a monumentally stupid action, the kind of stupid that even fifteen-year-old me would hesitate to do.
One tiny problem occurs to me.
I no longer have a phone or a car.
Opening a new tab, I request a rideshare. Then I pull up driving instructions to the address I read on Vanya’s driver’s license back at Coquette and print them out.
I dress in a sweater and a pair of jeans while I wait.
Screw it.
Throwing myself down in front of the laptop again, I open another tab and order a brand-new Lamy. The nicer, pricier scala with fourteen-carat gold nib, partially plated in platinum, and available in vibrant red. A present to myself for this next chapter in my life.
Then I pace and plan, going through every memory to piece together how to make this all right.
Half an hour later, a rideshare carries me to the car rental place three blocks from my apartment, where I rent the most dependable vehicle I can that will get me to Chicago without hassle.
At least Vanya’s cash proved useful. I don’t even feel bad for choosing a car he’d consider hideous.
A pearly white Honda Civic suits me just fine.
With my purse on the seat next to me, I drive nine miles over the speed limit, hopefully not quite fast enough for a cop to pull me over. Still, my destination’s more than two hundred miles away, so I have several hours to examine my life choices.
After I tire of wallowing in self-pity, I blast the radio—anything works at this point—and channel all my focus on the road, the directions, and how pissed I am at Vanya.
His address is twenty-five miles outside of downtown Chicago. The directions guide me through tree-lined streets, past mansions that get bigger the farther I go. An incredibly wealthy suburb. Big houses behind bigger walls.
Old money. New money. Criminal money.
Finally, I reach the location. High stone walls surround wrought iron gates. Security cameras, visible even from the road, monitor every motion. Manicured lawns stretch into the distance. A house must be hidden somewhere, hopefully along with Vanya.
As I pull up, I spot an intercom mounted on a post.
This is the Kozlov Bratva. They’re all here. Well, maybe not all of them, but a lot of them. It’s almost certainly where the Pakhan Roman Kozlov lives.
This is it. My last chance to retreat. Drive away and disappear like Vanya suggested.
Instead, I roll down my window, ignoring the chilly evening air that carries the biting promise of winter. When I press the button, static crackles, followed by silence. Someone’s listening but not saying a word.
Waiting for me to speak.
“I need to talk to Roman Kozlov. Vanya’s walking into Gio Falcone’s trap tonight, and we have to stop him.”
The silence ticks by.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Twenty.
My insides quiver, and not just because of the long drive with no bathroom breaks. I’m asking for an audience with the head of a criminal organization. Unannounced.
This must be proof that the last week has driven me insane.
Even so, the mere idea of losing Vanya keeps me rooted in place. I won’t budge until I get to speak to someone in charge.
With a mechanical groan, the gates swing open.
I don’t give myself time to reconsider.
I simply drive through.
Because love isn’t just what you feel when someone’s keeping you in the dark.
Love is action.
It’s what you do when someone shatters your heart and runs away. You demand a meeting with the Russian version of the Godfather to save their ridiculous ass.
Even if it’s the most reckless thing you’ve ever done.
Even if doing so gets me killed.