Chapter 15
Kiryan
My teeth clamped so hard my jaw ached. My lungs felt like they'd been filled with molten fire.
I didn't know when Isabella had taken that photo.
I sure as hell didn't know why she'd sent it to Elena.
Elena's face had gone so white it was almost translucent, the corners of her eyes wet and raw.
She had never been good at hiding anything.
The hurt bled out of her in the way her shoulders stayed tight.
"That photo isn't what you thought," I said, forcing my voice steady over the rage burning for Isabella.
Olga snatched the phone back into her palm. "Then explain it."
"Last night Isabella lost it. She got drunk and damn near jumped off the terrace.
I took her home. I promised I'd leave after she fell asleep, and I passed out in a chair by the bed.
" The words came out fast, faster than I'd ever spoken.
"Yeah, I ended up on the bed. Nothing happened. I stayed dressed. I didn't touch her."
Elena's lips moved, but no sound came. Her chest still rose and fell too hard, like every word shoved that photo back into her body.
"You know she still has feelings for you," Olga said, staring me down. "And you still gave her the chance to crawl close and take a picture like that. What the hell was Elena supposed to think?"
I only looked at Elena. "It looked dirty. That didn't mean I betrayed you. You should've trusted me."
She lifted her chin and let out a bitter little laugh.
"So you say nothing happened, and I'm supposed to just swallow it.
Funny. I had to fight like hell to get you to believe I wasn't the kind of person you decided I was.
She came back, and that trust vanished overnight.
Why? Why did she get to erase it?" The disappointment in her eyes damn near burned me to ash.
I looked away, ashamed.
"You could drag her out of my birthday party in front of everybody and sneak a kiss with her." Her voice cut. "You could stay with her all night and ignore every call I made. But you didn't get to take away my right not to believe you."
"I didn't fucking kiss her!" I shouted. "She leaned in. I moved."
Elena flinched, but she still didn't believe me.
"Fine. Say that's true." Her voice went colder. "Then what about the photo? If nothing happened, why was she half naked, pressed up on you, taking something that screamed you two slept together—and sending it to me?"
I didn't answer right away.
Isabella cared about appearances. She understood lines. A screwup like that didn't fit her. But the image of her sobbing on the terrace, ready to die, kept me from condemning her without hearing her out.
"When I woke up, my clothes were still on. She drank a lot. Maybe she didn't even know what she was doing."
Elena looked like I'd slapped her. "You're making excuses for her."
"I'm stating facts."
"Your facts always protect her."
Olga broke into the suffocating silence between me and Elena.
"Kiryan, tell me," she said sharply. "What made you flip overnight and start treating Elena like the enemy again? Did Isabella say something?"
Enemy. The word hit my chest like a fist.
Elena's tears fell. I saw the pain in her. But that video sat in my phone like a live bomb.
"Elena... you really didn't know?"
"Know what?"
"The video from the engagement night. The one of me and you in that room."
She froze. The look on her face wasn't guilt. It was confusion, like she didn't even understand what I meant.
Olga frowned. "What video?"
"Someone filmed us." I didn't take my eyes off Elena. "Isabella said you sent it to her. That you used it to force her to leave. You said if she didn't, you'd hand it to the press and let the whole world know I touched my fiancée's sister on the night of my engagement."
The last bit of color drained from Elena's face. Two seconds later, she shook her head hard.
"No. I didn't do that. How could I? I didn't even know there was a camera in the room."
"But the video exists. I watched it. It didn't look fake."
"I don't know where it came from," she said, steady and unblinking, "but it wasn't me."
Olga stepped closer like something clicked in her mind.
"Are you sure Isabella didn't shoot it herself?" Olga said. "That woman was capable of it. You and Elena finally started getting stable, and she suddenly came back. You don't think that was too convenient?"
I remembered Isabella showing up at my birthday party, fragile on purpose. I remembered her back on the terrace, that dead-set posture before she tried to jump.
I couldn't—couldn't—make my brain accept she'd planned all of it.
Elena watched me not answer. Whatever hope she'd been holding onto died in her eyes.
"I said it wasn't me. If you're going to believe her no matter what, then I'll go. I'll give her my spot. I'll make it easy for you two."
"Don't threaten me with leaving." My temples throbbed.
The second she said she'd go, my heart went hollow.
"She handed you a video, and you convicted me on the spot," Elena said, voice breaking. "She sent that photo, and you still rushed to explain it for her first."
The words stabbed right where I refused to touch. She wasn't wrong. And still, heat surged in me like I'd been insulted.
"Because she got tortured after she left," I snapped, "and you get everything you want."
Elena stared at me like I'd lost my mind. "What do I get? A husband who can drop me anytime Isabella snaps her fingers?"
"Kiryan!" Olga barked. "Stop saying that shit. Elena isn't your enemy. Couldn't you see how much you're hurting her?"
I did see it. That was the problem. I saw it too clearly, and I sounded more and more like my father. I needed to get out of there. If I stayed, I'd say something I couldn't take back.
I copied the photo. Then I walked to the coffee table and grabbed my car keys.
"Kiryan," Elena called after me, her voice shaking. "Please. Don't go to Isabella. Not this time. Just... not this time."
I didn't turn around. The door closed behind me, cutting off Olga's scolding and Elena's muffled crying.
I drove out of the manor, foot heavy on the gas. Fuck.
On one side, Isabella's secret video and the suffering she claimed she'd lived through after leaving. On the other, Elena's face—shocked so blank it looked emptied out. I didn't know which one of them was lying. And I couldn't stand the idea that I might've judged the wrong person from the start.
I needed answers.
Forty minutes later, I stopped under Isabella's apartment building. The more I looked at that photo, the more staged it felt. I killed the screen, went upstairs, and knocked.
Isabella opened the door, startled. "Kiryan?"
I shoved my phone in front of her face. "Explain."
Her pupils tightened.
"Why did you take a picture that made it look like we fucked?" I said. "And why did you send it to Elena?"
She backed up half a step, hands clasped in front of her. "I woke up, and you were still there. I got scared that if you left, everything would go back to how it was. I wanted a photo. Something to keep."
"You needed to strip down and press yourself on me for a keepsake?"
"I didn't strip," she said quickly. "Maybe you didn't notice—last night I wore a slip. The strap slid down. I only cared about getting us in the same frame. I didn't think the angle would look like that."
I replayed last night. My head had been full of the video. I hadn't paid attention to what she wore.
"Then why did Elena get it?"
"I meant to save it in a private album. My head was killing me. I hit the wrong contact." She thrust her phone at me. "By the time I realized, it was already sent. I couldn't take it back. I deleted the original, cleared the recently deleted. Check."
I took her phone. The photo wasn't there.
"I know it sounds insane," she kept going. "But I swear I didn't do it on purpose. Once she read it, I didn't know how to explain without making it worse. Kiryan, I wouldn't deliberately destroy your marriage."
"You should've told me first."
"I was scared." Her voice shook. "This morning she called. I even told you to answer. But the second you saw her name, you changed. I shouldn't have talked about her at all."
She wasn't lying. She had told me to pick up when Elena called. And I'd been drowning in that sour, grinding mood. The more she insisted the mistake wasn't Elena's, it was hers, the more I snapped. So I'd hung up.
"I'm sorry." Isabella forced back tears when I didn't respond.
She turned and went into the bedroom, came back fast dragging a suitcase, and started shoving the clothes off the couch into it.
"Wha're you doing?"
"Packing."
"You're leaving New York?"
"The photo already made Elena think the worst," she said, head down. "If I stay, you two would keep fighting. I should go. Maybe it's better for everyone."
The fire in me lost its footing, little by little.
If Isabella had been trying to wreck my marriage, she would've cornered me, made me choose. She wouldn't have packed a bag and offered to disappear.
I pressed a hand down on the suitcase. "Stop."
"But Elena will be furious. She thinks I'm trying to steal you."
"That's mine to handle. You don't have to go."
"Then what about Elena?"
"If someone has to leave," I said, "it won't be you."
The moment the words landed, I expected relief. Instead, my chest sank heavier, like I'd just cut something loose with my own hands.
Isabella stood and wrapped her arms around me, cheek against my chest, holding tight.
"I thought you'd never be on my side again."
I didn't hold her back.
I'd just decided to believe her, but Elena was my wife. Elena's voice—crying, begging me to stay—still rang in my ears. If I hugged another woman right now, no excuse in the world would keep me from crossing a line that was mine to guard.
I peeled Isabella's hands off and stepped back, putting the right distance between us. She looked thrown, but she didn't push.
"Since I don't have to leave," she said, wiping her tears and forcing a smile, "could you go out with me? That riverside place we used to go to. We won't talk about anything. We just eat."
I should've said no. But I'd barged in, accused her, and practically shoved her into packing.
"Go change."
In under twenty minutes she came out in a dark long dress, hair pinned up.
I had to admit it—Isabella carried herself in a way people couldn't ignore. But the image that rose in my head was Elena's paint-stained fingertips, Elena so focused she forgot to fix her hair. She wasn't perfect. Somehow that made her impossible to erase.
I went downstairs with Isabella, tossed my keys to a guard, and got in the back seat with her.
We hadn't even reached the restaurant when Feodor called.
"We confirmed the last attack," he said, blunt and tight. "The shooter's final payment ended up in a transport company controlled by Matteo Soto."
My blood cooled, inch by inch.
Matteo ran a Mexican outfit, the kind of bastard who lived for chaos. He'd been trying to take my shipping routes for a long time. Now he'd gone after the docks and territory I controlled.
"Watch him," I said. "I want everyone he met in the last two weeks, every vehicle, every cargo movement. I want the list tonight. And don't spook him until I say."
"Understood."
I ended the call. Blind revenge made holes. I needed to cut where it hurt most and end it clean, no loose ends.
The phone went quiet again. No new calls. No messages. Elena didn't reach out.
That sick pressure crawled back up my chest.
I barely had time to breathe before a black car shot out of a side street to our right, moving way too fast.
I only got one word out.
"Down!"
The impact detonated. Metal screamed. The side of the car where Isabella sat caved in, glass trembling in its frame.
My ears rang until the world turned to static.
"Isabella."
No answer. Her head lolled against the window, blood running from her temple. Her wrist bent wrong, ugly and unnatural.
My heart slammed into my ribs.
I ripped my seat belt free, pressed my hand to her head. Warm blood surged through my fingers instantly. The armored SUV behind us caught up. I yanked her belt loose and hauled her out. She went limp in my arms.
"Hurts..." Her voice barely existed.
I ran her to the armored car. Faster than waiting on an ambulance.
"Closest hospital," I ordered. "Call ahead. Tell ER to be ready."
The door slammed. The driver floored it. Isabella's breaths went thinner and thinner.