Chapter 52 Stefan
STEFAN
I’m halfway home when my phone rings. Taras’s name lights up the screen. “We have a problem.”
I grip the steering wheel tighter. “What kind of problem?”
“Another attack on the manor. No fatalities, but…”
Silence. A tense emptiness that makes my blood run cold.
“Taras, what the fuck happened?”
He takes a breath. “Mikayla and Olivia are gone.”
The car swerves, almost into oncoming traffic. I correct it, pulling onto the shoulder and throwing the vehicle into park. “Gone? What do you mean, ‘gone’?”
“I mean they’re not here. They left.”
“Left how? Were they taken? Did someone breach the perimeter?”
“No. The security system on the manor itself held. Brother, according to the men and the tapes I just reviewed… it looked more like a getaway.”
“A getaway.”
“Yeah. Armored jeeps showed up. Olivia ran straight to them. Mikayla was with her. They got in and drove off.”
I can’t breathe. The air in the car feels thick enough to choke on. “You’re saying Olivia escaped. With Mikayla.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“No. No, that doesn’t make sense. Someone must have forced her. Threatened her. She wouldn’t just—”
“Stefan,” Taras cuts in, as gently as he knows how to do, “it looked like they were working together.”
I close my eyes. “I’m on my way.”
I hang up and floor it. The Maserati roars to life. Trees and buildings blur past, but my mind is racing faster than the car.
Olivia ran. She left me. She chose Mikayla over me.
No. That’s not possible. She loves me. She told me she loves me. She’s carrying my child. She wouldn’t just abandon everything we’ve built.
Unless…
Unless she doesn’t believe me anymore. Unless someone convinced her I’m the monster they all say I am.
My mother. It has to be my mother.
I rip through the gates of the manor twenty minutes later. The place is crawling with guards. Taras is waiting in the foyer. He looks grim.
“Show me the tapes,” I bark.
Without saying a word, he leads me to the security room. The tech on duty pulls up the footage. I watch in silence as armored jeeps roll up to the manor. Men in tactical gear pour out. My guards engage. Gunfire erupts.
Then the basement door opens.
Mikayla steps out first. Then Olivia.
She’s not being dragged. She’s not struggling. She walks to the jeep on her own two feet. Mikayla climbs in beside her. The door closes. The jeeps tear off.
The whole thing takes less than three minutes.
I watch it again. And again. Looking for something I missed, some sign that she was coerced. But there’s nothing.
She left me.
“Where did they go?” I ask in a hoarse croak.
“We lost them about two miles out. They must have switched vehicles.”
“So we have nothing.”
“We’re working on it. Mikayla’s phone is still here. Olivia’s is gone, but it’s turned off. We can’t track it.”
I turn away from the screens as acid burns in my throat. “I need to see the basement.”
Taras follows me down the stairs. The door to Mikayla’s cell is wide open. It’s empty.
I walk inside and check under the mattress. Nothing. I check the drawers. Nothing.
Then I see it. On the floor, half-hidden under the bed frame. A small, black recording device.
I pick it up and press play.
My own voice fills the room. “That’s the only reason I want her back. I don’t care about her, but I do care about the baby in her belly. I care about my heir.”
The recording ends.
I stand there, staring at the device in my hand. That conversation—I remember it now. I was trying to manipulate Mikayla, to make her think I didn’t care about Olivia so she’d give up information on my mother.
But Olivia doesn’t know that. She must’ve heard this and thought I meant it.
“Fuck!” I hurl the device against the wall. It shatters into pieces.
Taras doesn’t say anything. He just watches me.
I storm out of the basement and go upstairs to our bedroom. Her clothes are still in the closet, her things on the nightstand. Everything exactly as we left it this morning.
I search high and low, here and there, until a second clue turns up: a journal, tucked under a pillow on the window seat.
My father’s journal.
I freeze as my fingers brush the cracked leather cover.
The journal’s smell hits first. It smells just like him.
My throat tightens as I flip through pages.
How many nights did I spend as a boy watching my father carve his handwriting into this book?
Pen clenched between his nicotine-stained fingers, a late-night vodka at his side… The memory makes bile rise in my chest.
So do the words.
I should never have done what I did. It was not her that ended our marriage. It was me. She lost her child because of me. How can I ever expect her to forgive me for that?
I read it again. Then again.
No. No, that can’t be right. I saw what she did. I watched her betray him. I watched her choose Vasily over him.
But maybe I didn’t see the whole picture. Maybe I only saw what I wanted to see.
Just like Olivia tried to tell me.
I close the journal and set it back on the desk. My hands are shaking again, damn near unusable. Olivia read this. She read my father’s words and believed them. She believed I was wrong about my mother. That I was the one who couldn’t see the truth.
I no longer know who’s right and who’s wrong.
I drift back downstairs. Taras is waiting in the foyer. “What now?” he asks.
“Now, I find her.”
“How? We don’t know where she is.”
“No. But I know someone who might.”
“Who?”
I don’t answer. I just head for the door.
“Wait, where the fuck are you going?” Taras calls after me. “Goddammit, Stef, I’m coming—”
I stop and put a hand on his chest. “No. I need you here. Keep looking for Olivia. Track her phone, her credit cards, anything you can find.”
“Stefan—”
“That’s an order.”
He hesitates. Then nods. “Just don’t do anything stupid, okay?”
“Too late for that, my friend.”
I get in the Maserati and drive. My mind is blank. I can’t think about Olivia. I can’t think about the recording. I can’t think about my father’s journal.
All I can think about is getting her back.
Iakov’s street is quiet when I arrive. I check my watch. Six-thirty. He should be home any minute now.
I park across the street and wait. Ten minutes pass. Then twenty. Finally, a car pulls up. But it’s not Iakov. It’s Arielle.
She gets out, carrying grocery bags. She walks to the front door and fumbles with her keys.
I climb out of the car and cross the street. She doesn’t see me until I’m right behind her.
“Arielle.”
She jumps and spins around. “Oh my God! Stefan. You scared me.”
“I need to talk to Iakov.”
“He’s not here. He had a late meeting.”
“When will he be back?”
“I don’t know. Maybe an hour?” She combs her hair out of her face. “You can wait inside if you want. I was just about to make dinner.”
“That’s very kind. Thank you.”
She unlocks the door and I follow her inside. The apartment is warm and inviting. Smells like cinnamon and vanilla. She sets the grocery bags on the counter and starts unpacking them.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asks.
“No. I’m fine.”
She pulls out vegetables and starts chopping. “So what do you need to talk to Iakov about?”
“Business.”
“Oh.” She doesn’t press. Just keeps chopping.
I walk to the living room and sit on the couch. There are photos on the wall. Iakov and Arielle at the beach. Iakov and Arielle at a restaurant. Iakov and Arielle smiling.
They look happy. Truly happy.
I feel a pang of something I can’t name. Envy, maybe. Or regret.
Arielle brings me a glass of water anyway. “You look tired,” she says. “Is everything okay?”
“No. But it will be.” Then I pull out my gun and point it at her. “I’m sorry to involve you in this. But I no longer have a choice. Sit down, Arielle. You and I are going to wait for Iakov to get home.”