38. Anastasia
Anastasia
S eventy-two hours pass without Rhett and each one feels like my life is draining slowly. I only know this from Riley, who came over yesterday when she couldn’t get a response from me and stayed the night.
I don’t have it in me to tell her I’d rather be alone.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate her attempt of comfort. I just can’t, won’t , absorb any of it.
My parents are worried. Maybe my father is even regretful of how he spoke of Rhett. I don’t care, and I’m not ready to forgive him.
I’ve hardly left Rhett’s bed. Staying curled up in his hoodie is my reassurance he’s coming back.
I’m tormented with everything I never got to say to him.
Everything we’ll never get to do. Rhett’s gone, and he deserved to know how much he means to someone, how important and special he is, that he’s not the monster he believes he is. He deserves to be loved.
I let him down.
“You need to shower,” Riley says softly on the bed beside me. “Start taking care of yourself.”
“I didn’t tell him I love him,” I croak, curled away from her.
“I bet he knew.”
“That doesn’t matter. He never thought he deserved it, and I should have told him.”
Riley tucks up behind me, squeezing my arm. “I’m so sorry, Ana. I know that doesn’t mean shit for what you’re going through, but he wouldn’t want to see you like this.”
She didn’t know him. Not really. There’s no one in my life who knew who Rhett truly was, and that only cleaves in me deeper.
My tears won’t stop falling, but I no longer sob until I choke. My denial is turning to anger and I’ve been reeling with what I want to do with it. How I can avenge him with the serpents I still wear and will forever.
“Okay,” I say.
It’s a beacon of hope for Riley. It will be for my parents.
But as I stand in a state of mind-stilling numbness under the waterfall of the shower head, I craft my plan.
Maybe it’s the echo of Rhett that lives in me now pushing the grief and loss aside to make room for what needs to be done.
No matter how long it takes or what morals I have to sacrifice for it.
There’s a monster on the loose, and I’m nothing if not part of Xoid, and Rhett Kaiser’s girlfriend, ready to stop him.
So I dress in all black and I leave his room for the first time.
Eating breakfast is my first challenge, but I need the strength.
My parents’ voices are mostly a hum to my calculating thoughts and I nod enough to appear present.
They leave that afternoon for some speech my father is giving at a hotel in the city, and I don’t waste a second, infiltrating his office, intending to find anything I can if he’s still looking into Rhett.
I’ve already plucked the keys from his bedroom for every locked space in here.
When my child-self first discovered them and found nothing but boring paperwork, I never had reason to steal them again.
The first filing cabinet turns up nothing. Neither does the next. I go to his desk, sitting in his prominent chair and leaning down to sift through his drawers. Then I find it. His name sprawled in eleven beautiful letters, and I have to force back my threatening grief. Focus, Ana.
My father has been looking into him like a criminal. My resentment grows.
Sifting through Rhett’s file, my fingers brush his face from his forged secret service identification, and all that clenches in my chest are words unspoken and feelings that will forever kill me slowly.
There isn’t much inside, to my relief. His birth name, Everett Lanshall, isn’t anywhere, but I’m only looking for one thing.
I pull out the police report of the accident and I’m slammed with anger that trembles my hand.
He uses Rhett’s alias, and I want to carve the name he had no right to: Alistair Kaiser.
The bare minimum about him, likely mostly false, is in here as part of the police accident file when he identified Rhett.
He’s lying.
My mind won’t stop tormenting me. Denial circles with vicious accusations to spin any possible alternative that Rhett is still alive. Alistair has him.
I will never be able to rest until I find out for myself.
I’m admiring the sea view of the restaurant I’m sitting in. The winter sun glitters on the surface of the calm waves, soothing my senses, which are razor-sharp.
The chair opposite me finally pulls out, and I slide my eyes to meet those of my greatest enemy.
Alistair Lanshall is everything I pictured.
His hair is a far darker blond than Rhett’s silvery hue.
He’s very tall like him, though not as broadly built, and his eyes are a darker blue.
He regards me with a delighted feline smile as he unbuttons his suit jacket and sits. I give him nothing in return.
“Anastasia Kinsley, it is an absolute honor to finally meet you,” he says, his voice as slow and cruel as I imagined.
“I can’t say the same.”
That only curves his wicked mouth further.
“I was most surprised to receive your message. I’ll admit I thought it a setup at first, so I’ll advise you, I have many men surrounding us should you have anything planned.”
I shake my head calmly. “Nothing yet.”
His blue irises sparkle at that. “I followed you and my nephew in the tabloids and papers. A very convincing couple, I must say. Even if it was false, I imagine you grew at least somewhat close with it all, so I’m sorry for your loss.”
I have to take a pause to collect myself, if only to stop me from running my idle fingers up the stem of my wineglass to grip it and smash it over his head. I’m not used to these violent thoughts, but something in me is chanting them for Rhett.
“Did you kill him?”
He makes a show of seeming wounded . Alistair leans back in his chair, looking over the water as if he’s reflecting on fond memories with his nephew. “Rhett was everything to me,” he says, trying to sound sincere. “I am devastated.”
“You can cut the bullshit,” I snap. “It’s just you and me here, and we both know there was nothing fake about what was in those papers. You don’t get to claim you had feelings for him when all you did was hurt him.”
He drops the mask, flicking his eyes to me with cool amusement.
“I said he was everything to me, not that I had a pathetic weak heart for the boy.” He leans forward as if taunting me. “I saw something in him that no one else did. Certainly not my brother or his coddling, insufferable wife. I saw someone worthy of succeeding me—leading an empire.”
“Of crime and corruption. He never wanted that.”
“Sometimes we don’t know what is best for us until we’re shown.”
“You gave him no choice.”
“He had a child’s heart to grow out of, that’s all. He would have come to understand if he’d stayed. He would have tasted the riches, felt the power, and he would have slept like a damn babe at night.”
“You’re wrong.”
“You want to see something good in him. It’s adorable.”
My jaw tightens, and whatever else I expose in my expression makes him tilt his head, watching me curiously.
“Maybe you were suited to each other after all,” he says with a vacancy that reveals he’s thinking far more than what he speaks. “I could keep you safe, you know. I could offer you the world on a platter and the moon on a string.”
He can’t be fucking serious.
“I’d rather take a knife to my own chest.”
“There’s not just a price out for you, Miss Kinsley—you’re already sold, and it’s only a matter of time before that debt is collected. I am the only person who can protect you. It is why I came. For Everett. He would want this.”
“You don’t know a thing about him,” I hiss. “You murdered his fiancée.”
“Ahh, yes, it was one the most unfortunate collaterals in all my years, but it did exactly what I needed it to do. It made Everett Lanshall everything I saw within him even as a child. The anger that was calm and waiting to be given a purpose, the way he could analyze people and things, the control he had despite the darkness he harbored. If left to his own devices, they would have said he was a volatile, troubled kid, a lost cause. They never would have appreciated all his worth, but I did.”
Alistair wanted Rhett since he was a child. My mind is racing, nagging with something that feels just shy of being put together. Until it dawns on me with bone-trembling clarity.
“Rhett’s parents died in a car accident,” I whisper, hoping my thoughts are reaching. Alistair couldn’t be capable of killing his own brother and wife just to have Rhett.
Yet by the way he watches me, almost impressed ...
I’m going to be sick.
“You killed them. The same way you killed Rhett.”
Alistair leans back with a sigh as if it’s something I can’t possibly understand.
“I can’t have children, Anastasia. I’ve never pictured myself the fatherly type, but I longed for someone to share my empire with—someone with the potential to succeed me.
To continue the legacy I built from the fucking ground up.
Then Rhett came along, my first nephew, and it was like he was born to the wrong person when he was just like me.
I saw my younger self in him, and just like when we were kids, I knew my brother would never understand or appreciate Rhett.
I did it for him. His parents would have made him believe there was something wrong with him.
His fiancée would have held him back. I gave him the freedom from all of them to be everything he was destined to be.
I let him think he was the hunter for years while I watched and waited.
I would have come for him eventually, and now he’d done unspeakable things I was willing to spend as much time as it took to show him we would be unstoppable together. ”
I can hardly breathe I’m so unprepared for this kind of world-shifting revelation. I knew he was a twisted, evil man ... but all he’s orchestrated ... all he’s taken from Rhett ...
“Will you walk with me?” I ask calmly, not waiting as I stand and slip into my coat.
I need the air, a moment to think.
We head down a deserted boardwalk and I try to keep my stomach at bay as I look over the sea rather than at the vicious being next to me.
“He might have been some of the things you said, but Rhett was good. Why couldn’t you just let him go?” I ask.
“I’ve always thought of him as my son. I could never give up on him.”
“He wasn’t yours,” I say, finally stopping, and my heart is beating out of my chest. My hand shakes in my pocket, but my anguish and agony is ready to do what I’ve come here for.
There’s no taking it back when I spin and aim a gun at Alistair Lanshall’s head.
“You took him from me,” I say, voice quavering.
He doesn’t seem at all fazed by my threat. It’s Rhett’s gun. I found it tucked away in a drawer in his room. I can do this for him.
“You’re no killer, Anastasia.”
“You don’t know what I am,” I hiss through the pain tearing me apart and blurring my vision.
With gritted teeth I click off the safety.
I have him right here under my gun, the person who abused, tortured, and ultimately killed the only man I’ve ever loved before I had the chance to tell him.
“Neither of us will walk away if you pull that trigger,” he says, so calm, not believing I’ll do it. And what pricks my eyes and trembles my hand is that I don’t have the confidence I’ll do it either. “It would be such a waste.”
“Why did you do it?” I ask. An angry tear slips down my cheek and I despise myself for it.
Alistair steps closer until the barrel touches his forehead.
“I think I severely underestimated you, Miss Kinsley,” he says, so gentle, like he’s approaching a storm to tame it.
“You’re in grave danger and my offer still stands.
I see why my nephew was drawn to you. You’re not like Sarah Carter.
She would have always been too good, too quiet, too safe.
But you ...” He reaches a foul hand to my face, and that’s when I break, stepping back with a sob and lowering my gun.
“You are an absolutely stunning creature of potential. You, my dear, would thrive in our world. Let me help you, Ana, before it’s too late. ”
My lip wobbles, angry with myself that I couldn’t follow through. I lured him out here, I came face-to-face with the man Rhett hunted for years, and I was too cowardly to end it for him.
“Burn in hell,” I say venomously.
“Oh Ana, people like you and me are forged from those fires.”
The way he speaks of us as the same— you and me— riddles me with so much disgust I have to get out of there. Away from his eyes that start to thread a claim around me.
Over the past three days there have been two clashing, damning forces that won’t allow me to accept such a finality as death. No matter that I saw the paper with the wreckage no one should be able to survive. Even now I’m standing in the presence of his killer who plays the part so well.
I can’t let go of the doubt laced with hope.
Because he isn’t no one. He isn’t anyone. He’s Rhett fucking Kaiser, and he can’t be dead.
Not like this.
“I want to think about it,” I say. Bile rises in my throat.
I’m so sorry, Rhett. He would tell me not to do this.
But this is the only way to get close enough again and muster the strength to kill Alistair.
And only then, if I don’t find Rhett in all I have to do and all I might become, will I accept that he’s gone forever.
“I’m afraid you don’t have the luxury of time, my dear.”
“One night. Can we meet tomorrow?”
His lips purse, contemplative. “I really hope we get the chance to. Stay in your home tonight. Don’t even go into the garden without your guards. If they come for you, it will be too far out of my hands then.”
“Who is coming for me?”
He scans me over as if curious. “Your buyer, of course.”
“My . . .”
Realization hits me like a bullet.
The missing jewelry Rhett was trying to find. The ruby, sold for a sickening amount of money that night, yet they never found the woman it correlated to.
All this time. I’ve been walking around with a fucking sale tag on my back, and now I’m furious with no face to direct it toward.
“Jacob?” I ask.
Alistair takes a deep breath, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Go home, Ana. Don’t leave until you come to see me again tomorrow. I’ll send for you.”
I nod, letting Alistair escort me back to the restaurant, and I don’t protest when he says he’ll be following me home. I drive with my thoughts racing by faster than the road. I’ve never felt so lost and alone and scared. I yearn so deeply for only one person, but he’s not coming for me this time.
If he’s still out there, I have to come for him.