JETMIR
CHAPTER SIX
The scent of cigarettes, paper, and leather competed with the sharp notes of bourbon. The attorney was still alive in the next room—frightened, exhausted, and painfully aware that weeks had passed since anyone had seen him.
The lawyer who’d handled the divorce process for Santos. The man who tried to cut Anya from me.
Over. My. Dead. Body.
I poured another finger of bourbon into a crystal glass and watched the liquid catch the yellow light. The attorney’s muffled voice drifted through the wall.
“You won’t get away with this. Let me out.”
The door to my office opened and my twin sister, Elira, strolled on through, eyeing me disapprovingly.
“This won’t help your situation and you know it.”
Maybe not, but neither did a divorce. So I ignored her and took a slow drink.
“Come on, Jet. You have to let go of your obsession with Anya,” she reasoned, taking the seat opposite me. “Please don’t do anything stupid. It will cause a war between our families. Amara is married to a Santos and that will—”
“Let there be a fucking war, then,” I said in a hardened voice. “Anya is my wife.”
“Was,” she corrected, and I shot her a glare. “Okay, okay, don’t bite my head off. I’m just worried about you. It’s been three years…”
“Three years, four months, and twenty-three days.”
“Jesus Christ.” She leaned back in her seat and heaved an exasperated sigh. “So what is your plan?” she asked. “And what does that poor lawyer have to do with it?”
“I don’t have one,” I lied with a straight face.
I trusted Elira explicitly, but I couldn’t risk losing Anya. Elira would know the plan on the day of. I counted on my twin to help; she always did. Then once Anya was back under my roof and in my arms, all the family would learn the plan.
It would be too late by then for anyone to do something about it and get in my way.
“I know that look, Jet,” Elira hissed. “You’re going after her, aren’t you?”
I didn’t deny it, but neither did I confirm it. We were twins, after all, and Elira knew me better than anyone.
Jetmir Thorne Volkov-Tijuana never fucking gave up. If there was one thing I inherited from my biological father—may he rot in hell—it was the talent for manipulation and scheming when it came to getting what I wanted.
“God, please, please, please don’t,” she continued. “We’re finally in a good spot and nobody is threatening to kill anyone.”
I smiled coldly. “It’s not my fault they lowered their guard.”
“I swear to God, I’m going to kill you if you land me on the shit list again.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be dramatic. Besides, you probably never came off their list. Our last names alone grant us eternal hate.” Elira winced and I instantly regretted my words. Damn it, I needed to get rid of this bitterness. “I’m sorry, sister. Please ignore me.”
She smiled sadly. “I would if it weren’t true.”
“Well, fuck them.”
“Yeah, that,” she agreed. “Still sucks that we’re judged on fucked-up deeds of our family names.”
I shrugged, although I agreed. It was something that hurt when I was a child. Now, it just made me furious, but I refused to show that.
“Nothing we can do about it. We’re stuck with those names for better or worse.”
“I guess so.” She pinned me with her stare. “Now tell me what I need to do to help you.”
“All you have to do is stay out of my way,” I replied vaguely, leaving the rest of the instructions for the day of my plan execution.
“If you so much as look at Anya, the Santos family won’t forgive you,” she protested. “Any of us. They’ll come after all of us.”
I pinned her with a stare. “No, they won’t. And it’s not as if they’ve ever forgiven me for marrying her.”
“Jet, please… whatever your plan, don’t. Mom is really looking forward to having Thanksgiving together.”
“Are you on my side or theirs?” I gritted.
“Yours, brother. Always yours.”
“Good.” I nodded with satisfaction, then shrugged. “Thanksgiving is weeks away. Things will be back to normal by then.”
Elira didn’t look convinced. But she’d also never been in love, so she couldn’t possibly understand.
She didn’t know how fucking much I missed my wife. The way she’d throw her head back after a joke, moonlight-colored hair spilling over her shoulders like silk. Her affinity for tequila.
A faint smile pulled at my mouth.
Most people needed salt, lime, and a few measured breaths to prepare themselves. Anya needed none of it. She’d toss back a shot, barely react, and immediately reach for another while everyone else was still recovering. My wife could drink most of my men under the table.
And then there was her obsession with books. It might’ve made me seethe with jealousy at one time or another, but I’d still buy her every single book on this planet because I loved seeing her eyes light up.
The memory of the day that I surprised her with a visit to a bookstore filtered in, warm and slow, much like the bourbon I was nurturing.
I found her sitting on the steps of the library of the Jean D’Arc university. She chewed the pen cap between her teeth with a dreamlike expression, wholly focused on her Kindle.
“You better be studying and not daydreaming about your book boyfriends,” I said.
She jumped, nearly dropping the device.
“Jesus, Thorne.” Fuck, sometimes I wished her calling me Thorne wasn’t a reminder that she didn’t really know my true identity. Although, I loved that she was the only person on this planet to call me by my middle name.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Kidnapping you for the weekend.”
“I have an exam in four days.”
“You’ll pass and we both know it.” I held out my hand. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“Does it matter?”
Getting into a car with me, a man she knew nothing about, should have mattered. She was smart enough that it should have mattered a great deal. But she trusted me and her hand was already in mine.
Someone might have said she was dumb to be so truthworthy, but she wasn’t. She didn’t trust just anyone and nobody seemed to understand that about Anya. Underneath all that careful, dutiful-daughter composure was a girl who wanted, badly, to be reckless.
I didn’t tell her where we were going until we were already at the airstrip.
“Portugal?” she said flatly, like she was waiting for the punchline. “Thorne, my parents will—”
“I’ll have you back before anyone notices.”
She scoffed. “Somehow I doubt that. Portugal isn’t a town in the same time zone, never mind the same continent. Someone will notice.”
“I promise you’ll be safe,” I vowed.
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“Come on, angel. I have a wonderful surprise for you.”
A ghost of a smile appeared on her lips and I could see I was already getting her to cave.
“This is insane,” she muttered. “This is—we can’t just—”
I kissed her and she stopped arguing, and then I nudged her up the steps and buckled her in. She fell asleep smiling somewhere over the Atlantic with her head against my shoulder, and I swore I would always keep her safe.
Lisbon met us gray and drizzling, but Anya studied it with shiny blue eyes and an excited expression. We grabbed breakfast, then walked the old streets hand in hand. Every so often, we’d pause and Anya would read a sign excitedly until we finally got to our destination.
My surprise for her.
The door was unmarked.
It boasted a layer of dust and a brass elephant knocker, and when I pushed it open, her gasp reached my ears. The look on her face as she stared at the shelves stacked to the ceiling was priceless.
“Thorne.” Her hand found my sleeve, fingers curling into the fabric without her seeming to notice. “Thorne. This is—how did you even—”
“You like it?”
She turned to look at me and nodded her head like a little kid in a toy store.
Two hours. Six bags. An old man behind the counter who kept sliding me approving looks every time she wasn’t watching, like he understood exactly what he was witnessing—a girl falling in love with a place, and a man falling further in love with her for it.
What he didn’t know was that I would burn down every library on earth if she asked.
I should have known then. Some feelings arrived already carrying their own warning label.
Three years, four months, twenty-three days, and somewhere in that gray Lisbon rain I’d already stopped being a man who knew how to let go of things.
I stared into my glass, the mahogany liquid in stark contrast to the yellow liquid of Anya’s choice.
Since she’d left me, I hadn’t been able to stomach tequila. Not that it was my drink of choice, but when she drank it, she insisted I did too in order to keep her company. So I did.
However, since she’d been gone, I couldn’t even bear to see it.
“Jet, are you okay?” My sister’s voice pulled me from my thoughts and I looked up.
“Never better,” I murmured as I lifted the glass toward her as though making a toast. “My wife’s birthday is coming up, and I’ll be sure to make it one she never forgets.”
She shook her head, then let out a heavy sigh. “I’m going to regret this, but please let me help you so at least you’re not killed before you get to kiss your woman again, you schmuck.”
I smiled. Through thick and thin, I could always count on my twin.