Chapter Fifteen
Stella
I drift into sleep wrapped in Aleksei’s arms, his warmth enveloping me like a cocoon.
It feels right. Everything feels right when we’re like this. Safe. Secure.
Until it happens again. Another nightmare.
His steady breathing against my neck should be comforting, but as consciousness slips away, I’m pulled not into peaceful darkness but into something else entirely.
This dream is different.
My mind knows it the moment it starts.
Unlike the jumbled pictures that have haunted me since waking in the hospital— disjointed images and half-formed memories— this feels crystal clear.
Movie-like. Real. Too real.
In this dream, I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, a phone pressed to my ear while I listen to words that I don’t want to hear. The voice on the other side is familiar.
It’s Hannah’s voice.
She’s my friend.
The name from the missed calls on the hidden phone. With the name, comes the memory of a face— expressive and animated, surrounded by wild red curls. Recognition hits like a tidal wave, leaving me reeling.
“Your father’s death was staged. A professional hit,” she’s saying, keeping her voice gentle but firm. “Your father was running from men who’d been sent for him. I’m so sorry to tell you this, Stels.”
I argue with her because it makes no sense. “Why? Why would someone do this to him? Who would want to hurt my dad? He… he was no one.” I try to process what she’s said, but my mind is resisting.
And then she says the words that flip my world upside down: “Stella, the hit was organized by Aleksei Tarasov.”
Aleksei Tarasov.
Even in sleep, I feel the shock ripple through my body, the denial rising in my chest. I envision my father’s broken body trapped in a cage of twisted metal, blood pooling on asphalt. I see my mother’s lifeless hand curled around a vial of poison.
She took her own life.
My mother killed herself over my father’s death. And it was all Aleksei’s fault.
I feel the grief of knowing that I would have to bury both of them just weeks apart.
I remember how I did it all alone because Nick had been hiding.
Hiding from the man who would kill him for the money that he owed.
And that man was also Aleksei. The man who shattered my entire family is sleeping beside me after making love to me.
Aleksei Tarasov.
In another flash, I can feel the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, where I’d sat after emptying the contents of my stomach. Because I’d known with absolute certainty that I couldn’t stay with my father’s killer.
I had to run.
So, I did.
The scene shifts, and suddenly I’m on a crowded street, surrounded by protesters holding signs and chanting.
The noise of the crowd swells around me, anonymous faces pressing in from all sides.
I don’t know where I’m going to go. All I know is that I have to get as far away from my father’s killer as possible.
I’m anxious, hiding among a throng of people as I slip away from the guard assigned to me, acting on impulse.
One of many who’d watched my every move.
I’d been a prisoner in this place, not a lover or even a guest. Aleksei was forcing me to stay here until I had my baby.
Aleksei Tarasov did it.
I toss in my sleep as more memories assail me. Now, the taste of greasy burger and salty fries lingers on my tongue— junk food Aleksei had forbidden during my pregnancy, but that I’d defiantly consumed after fleeing Blackwood Manor.
Then, in my dream, they find me. Two men appear, and I’m disoriented as they drag me to a waiting car, convinced that Aleksei has found me. Except it’s not Aleksei. This is even worse. So much worse.
I’m marched into a warehouse, cold concrete beneath me. Two figures loom ahead— a man and a woman, their features coming into sharp focus.
Gianni. My ex-fiancé. The sight of him brings back a flood of information that feels surreal. I’d loved him once until he cheated on me with the woman beside him. Sofia. Beautiful, cold Sofia. Watching with detached interest, a hint of satisfaction in her icy eyes.
Memories cascade through me now— Uncle Igor’s drunken confession about a sister given up for adoption before I was born. Boyana, who I’d talked to in my head throughout my childhood.
Sofia hates me. “You and that fucking baby got in the way of me and Aleksei and ruined everything, you stupid cunt!” Her words are pure venom, knocking me back a step.
And then Gianni takes it further. “I’ve always wanted to fuck a pregnant woman… with someone watching.”
It’s all too much, too much to comprehend. My head feels like it’s going to implode as I try to take it all in.
The scene dissolves, replaced by pure madness— gunfire, shouting, the smell of blood and torn flesh.
Aleksei bursting through the door, his face a mask of cold fury as he sees me.
The sickening crack of his fist connecting with Gianni’s jaw.
More gunfire. Then, something or some one appears behind me.
Pain explodes at the back of my head.
Sharp, unforgiving pain.
Darkness takes me.
And through it all, Hannah’s voice echoes on a loop: “Stella, it was organized by Aleksei Tarasov.”
Aleksei Tarasov.
I jolt awake gasping, my pulse pounding, drenched in sweat.
For a moment, I’m disoriented, the luxurious bedroom unfamiliar until reality settles back in. Blackwood Manor. Aleksei’s bed.
The silk sheets cling to my damp skin as I struggle to separate nightmare from memory, the phantom sensation of hands on my body still crawling across my flesh. My throat feels raw, as though I’ve been screaming, but the room remains silent except for my ragged breathing echoing in the darkness.
I turn my head slowly, finding him asleep beside me. In sleep, his face loses its hardness— the sharp angles softened, the perpetual wariness gone. He looks almost vulnerable, one arm still draped possessively across my waist.
My mind is a clusterfuck of confusion. Memories have returned in a flood, overwhelming and undeniable. I remember everything now— who I am, who he is, what brought me here. All of it. The fragments of my past clicking into place like jagged puzzle pieces, each one cutting deeper than the last.
The truth feels like ice water in my veins.
My father’s broken body in a black bag. My mother’s vacant eyes when I found her.
My brother’s terror, and the things I had to do to save him…
All because of the man sleeping peacefully beside me.
The man whose bed I’ve shared, whose body I’ve craved, whose child grows inside me.
The monster himself.
I should feel only hatred. Should be desperate to escape.
Yet as I look at him, other emotions war within me— desire, connection, even a twisted form of gratitude for how he’s protected me, cared for me, since my injury.
The gentleness of his hands when he bathed me, the fierce protectiveness in his eyes when threats emerged, the way his voice softens when he speaks to me in the darkness.
These contradictions tear me apart, making me question everything I thought I knew about good and evil, about vengeance and forgiveness.
How can I reconcile the man who destroyed my family with the one who makes my heart race when he enters a room?
The same hands that orchestrated my father’s death have cradled my face with such tenderness that it makes me ache.
Oh, my God!
What kind of freak am I?
I shift carefully, sitting up against the headboard. My hand moves instinctively to my stomach, feeling our daughter’s gentle movements beneath my palm. She could arrive any day now, Dr. Malhotra said. I have nowhere to go, no plan, no resources. The baby needs stability. Needs a father.
A father who murdered her grandfather.
But did he? Hannah said he was “responsible” —what does that mean, exactly? Did he pull the trigger himself? Order someone else to do it? And why? What possible reason could Aleksei have had to target my father, a simple doctor?
There must be more to this story. There has to be.
The intense energy between us is impossible to ignore, even now.
Despite everything I’ve remembered, I cannot deny the magnetic pull I feel toward him.
As I watch him sleep, it dawns on me: I am strangely comforted by the fact that I cannot escape him.
I should want to run far away from this dangerous man who is so fixated on me.
Yet deep down, where my true feelings lie, I don’t want to leave.
Have I lost my mind?
Beside me, Aleksei stirs. His eyes open, immediately alert in that way that’s always unnerved me— no gradual awakening, just instant consciousness. His gaze finds mine, and something in my expression must alarm him because he sits up, the sheet pooling around his waist.
“What is it?” he asks, his voice rough with sleep.
I open my mouth, but no words come. My body has gone rigid, frozen in place as conflicting impulses war within me. Part of me wants to scream accusations, to demand answers. Another part wants to pretend I remember nothing, to preserve this fragile peace between us.
He reaches for me, his hand warm against my cheek. “Stella? Talk to me.”
I flinch away from his touch, unable to help myself. His expression flickers with concern.
“Another bad dream?” he says gently, and my body responds instantly to the warmth of his voice.
Still, I can’t speak. My throat feels constricted, my lungs struggling for air.
He is your father’s murderer.
Is he? Hannah said he’s responsible. What does that mean? What really happened? Did he kill him? If yes, why?
Finally, when the silence feels like it’s gone on too long, I nod my head.
“Yes,” I whisper, “a bad dream.” And then I let him pull me up against his chest, and I melt there. I squeeze my eyes shut as I do it, willing the images away, wishing the memories hadn’t returned.
Because, God help me, I’ve fallen in love with my father’s murderer.
And I don’t know what to do about it.