43. Aurora
43
AURORA
The house sits quietly at the end of the street, looking so ordinary that it sends chills down my spine. Suburban. Normal. The kind of home where kids ride bikes on the driveway and neighbors wave from their lawns. Not the kind of place where monsters hide.
But I know better.
I park the car at the curb, my hand trembling against the steering wheel. The gun is heavy in my hand as I slide out of the car, my body moving on autopilot while my mind screams at me to turn around.
The diamond ring on my finger catches the afternoon light. In this moment, I'd give anything to have Ruslan beside me.
The front door is ajar. Just like seven years ago. Just like when I walked into my childhood home.
It's like he's recreating my nightmare down to the last detail.
I check the gun one last time.
The safety's off, a round already chambered. I can do this.
I have to do this.
The door creaks as I push it open. Hannah's muffled cries hit me first. She's gagged, tied to a chair in the center of the living room. Blood trickles from her forehead, her red hair matted against her temple.
Her eyes widen above the cloth gag, tears streaming down her face.
Then I see him. Kristofer.
Seven years have transformed him. His once-athletic frame has bloated into a disgusting collection of rolls and fat. His clothes stretch tight across his gut.
But those same cold and possessive green eyes haven't changed at all.
"Jamie," he breathes my name like a prayer as his eyes hungrily look me up and down. "You're still as beautiful as I remember in my dreams. Even after these seven long years."
The knife in his hand presses against Hannah's throat, drawing a thin line of red. Hannah's eyes lock onto mine, pleading silently.
Shoot him! Just shoot him!
My gun feels impossibly heavy.
"Drop the gun, Jamie," Kristofer says, his voice eerily calm. "One wrong move from me, and your friend is going to die."
"You won't," I challenge, but my voice wavers. "You need her alive to control me."
Kristofer smiles, and the expression turns my blood to ice.
"Want to test that theory, my love? I've waited seven years and left three bodies, Jamie. What's one more?" He presses the knife harder, and Hannah whimpers. "Don't make me do this, Jamie. Don't make me do things that I don't want to do."
Hannah's eyes dart between us, wide with terror.
"Let her go," I plead. "This is between us."
"No," he says simply. "You made this about her when you decided to spread your legs for a fucking criminal. Now be a good girl, and drop the gun. Or don't, and I kill this bitch, and you would've come for nothing! "
My mind races through scenarios. Shoot fast, rush him, distract him. But they all end with Hannah's blood on my hands. I know what Kristofer can do. What he's willing to do.
And just like that, I'm right back where I started. Powerless.
The gun clatters to the floor.
"That's my girl," Kristofer purrs. He yanks Hannah's head back, exposing her throat. "Now kick it to me."
Hating myself, I do as I'm told.
"When are you going to understand, Jamie?" he sighs almost tenderly when the gun comes to a stop under Hannah's seat. "All of this could've been avoided if you'd just stayed with me."
"Please," I whisper. "Don't hurt her."
"We belong together." His voice softens, and there's something worse in his gentleness than in his rage. "You know that, right? We were happy together."
I want to scream that we were never happy, that what he remembers as love was just manipulation and fear. But Hannah's life hangs by a thread.
"Come home with me, Jamie." He strokes Hannah's hair with the knife, making her flinch. "We can be who we were always meant to be. Just you and me. In a nice suburban home. Two cars. A family."
My stomach turns at the thought.
"You get to choose," he continues, voice light as if offering ice cream flavors. "Either you come with me willingly, or I kill your friend right in front of you and take you with me."
Hannah shakes her head frantically behind the gag, her eyes screaming no as tears run down her face.
When I don't answer, Kristofer's face darkens.
Without warning, he drags the knife down Hannah's cheek. She screams through the gag as blood wells from the cut, running down her face in crimson rivulets.
"Time to choose, Jamie," he says calmly, wiping the blade on Hannah's shirt. "Before I open her throat."
My hands ball into fists. I think of Ruslan, of the protection I felt in his arms, the future we'd begun to build. The mansion I just fled seems impossibly far away now.
I never told him I loved him .
"What's it going to be?" Kristofer singsongs. "Your freedom or her life? I'm not a patient man anymore."
The choice isn't really a choice at all. I look at Hannah, her eyes pleading with me not to give in.
But I can't let her die for me.
"I'll go with you," I whisper, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. "Just let her go."
Kristofer's face lights up with a twisted joy that makes my skin crawl. He lowers the knife from Hannah's throat, tucking it into his pocket.
"I knew you'd make the right choice, Jamie. You always do, eventually."
Hannah shakes her head violently, tears streaming down her face, mixing with the blood from the cut on her cheek as she screams at me through her gag.
I can't look at her anymore. The sight of what I've caused is too much.
"Please untie her," I say, my voice hollow.
"She'll be found sooner or later. I need to make sure you're really committed." Kristofer steps toward me, his breathing quickening. "I've waited so long for this moment. Oh, you have no idea."
He reaches for me, his thick fingers brushing my cheek. I turn my head away, but he grabs my chin, forcing me to face him. His breath is hot and sour against my face.
"Don't be like that, Jamie. We're going to be happy together."
When he leans in to kiss me, I turn my head again. His lips land on my cheek instead, but he doesn't seem to care. He drags his tongue up the side of my face, wet and hot.
"Oh, you taste exactly like I remember," he moans against my skin. "I've dreamed about this for seven years. Every night. Every day."
My stomach heaves. The taste of bile rises in my throat, and before I can stop it, I'm doubling over, vomiting onto the floor between us.
Kristofer jumps back, but not fast enough to avoid the splatter on his shoes.
"Oh," he says, his voice sickeningly sweet. "Are you nervous? Don't worry, it's natural."
He reaches for my hair, brushing it back from my face as I continue to heave. His touch makes everything worse, sends another wave of nausea through me.
"Don't!" I gag again, my empty stomach clenching painfully.
"It's okay, Jamie," he says, patting my back as I tremble. "We'll have all the time to be with each other anyway. There's no rush."
With one hand still on me, Kristofer turns and yanks Hannah's gag down roughly.
The moment her mouth is free, she screams.
"Aurora, run! Just fucking run!"
Before I can react, Kristofer's arm swings in a savage arc. The crack of his hand against Hannah's face echoes through the room like a gunshot. Her head snaps sideways, blood spraying from her split lip.
My body lurches forward instinctively. "Hannah!"
Kristofer whirls on me, his finger jabbing the air between us. "Stay where you are."
Then he turns back to Hannah.
"One more word and I will cut your throat." His voice drops to a whisper that's somehow more terrifying than his shouting. "Do you understand me?"
Hannah's eyes flick to mine. A tear slides down her cheek, mingling with the blood from her cut. She gives an almost imperceptible nod.
"Good." Kristofer pats her face like she's a dog who finally learned a trick. "Jamie and I have a lot of catching up to do."
He turns to me, extending his hand like we're on some twisted date. "Shall we?"
My legs feel disconnected from my body as I follow him toward the door. Hannah's blood stains his knuckles. I can't look back.
I know if I do, I'll crumble completely.
"We're going to be so happy," Kristofer murmurs, his fingers digging into my elbow as he steers me outside. "Everything will be just like before, except better."
The afternoon sun feels wrong on my skin. How can the world look so normal when everything inside me is shattering?
Kristofer opens his car door for me, the perfect gentleman in a monster's skin. His hand clamps around my wrist as I slide onto the worn passenger seat. The interior reeks of stale cigarettes and spilled beer.
The same smell that haunted the back of his police cruiser seven years ago.
"Seatbelt, baby," he murmurs, reaching across me to pull it over my chest. His arm lingers against me, and I press myself harder against the door.
Once he's behind the wheel, Kristofer stares at me with an expression that makes my skin crawl, like I'm a possession he's finally recovered.
"I can't believe you actually ran from me." He shakes his head, starting the engine. "Seven years, Jamie. Seven fucking years I've been searching for you."
His fingers brush my hair, and I jerk away. "I deserved to have a life!"
"Your life was with me!" He slams his palm against the steering wheel. The sudden violence makes me flinch. "Everything I did, I did for you! For us!"
My hands tremble in my lap. The diamond on my finger catches the light, and I curl my fingers to hide it.
"You murdered my family," I whisper, my voice cracking. "My parents. My little brother."
His face twists into something ugly. "Your parents were trying to keep us apart. They were poisoning your mind against me. They didn't know how to love you like I do."
I stare at him, anger burning at what I'm hearing.
"My parents were trying to protect me." My hands ball into fists. "From you ."
"And now they're dead." Kristofer's eyes harden. "Because they tried to keep us apart. Just like how your Russian thug tried to keep us apart."
"Ruslan will find me," I say, my voice steadier than I expect. "And then he'll kill you."
Kristofer starts laughing.
"What's so funny?"
He reaches into his jacket pocket and tosses his phone onto my lap. "Why don't you see for yourself."
The screen shows a tweet from ABC7 less than an hour ago: Shooting at Dragunov Estate. Multiple Deaths Reported. This is a developing story.
My heart stops.
"No..."
He snatches the phone back before I can click on the attached article or do something to contact the outside world.
"Look what you made me do, Jamie." There's a sick satisfaction in Kristofer's voice he repeats those awful words he wrote in my family's blood. "How many more people have to die before you understand that we're meant to be together?"
I can't breathe, and my engagement ring—Liliya's ring—seems to burn on my finger. I was in Ruslan's arms this morning as his lips whispered endearments into my hair.
And now he's gone?
No. He can't be.
Not when we've only just found each other.
The cold truth settles in my bones: this is my fault. All of it. Hannah still tied up in that house. Ruslan dead. His nieces.
Oh god, the girls.
Are they alright?
Or did they die wondering why their Uncle Ruslan's new wife brought this destruction into their lives?
Seven years I spent running, hiding, and erasing Jamie Fields from existence. Seven years I spent believing that if I disappeared completely, the monster from my past would never find me.
But monsters like Kristofer don't give up. They just keep hunting, patient as death itself.
And now everyone I care about has paid the price for my delusion that I could ever outrun my past.
The past doesn't die. It just waits for the perfect moment to rise from its grave and drag you back into darkness.
I can't run anymore. There's nowhere left to go.
"For what it's worth, Jamie." Kristofer's sausage-like fingers land on my exposed thighs, heavy and possessive as he squeezes. "I forgive you."
I shudder from his touch, wishing I was wearing something other than a simple blouse and a pair of shorts.
"I forgive you for running." His lips twist into a wormy smile and he pulls his hand back to start the car. "I forgive you for hiding. And I can even forgive you for spreading your beautiful legs like a whore to that Russian piece of shit."
"You took everyone from me," I say through clenched teeth. "Everyone I've ever loved."
"Not everyone, Jamie." Kristofer's lips twist into a wormy smile. "You still have me."
The car pulls away from the curb.
END OF BOOK 1
Ruslan and Aurora’s story continues in Book 2:
VENDETTA CROWN