At least once in every man’s life, he faces a reckoning.
My father told me that. He knew a lot about reckonings. About calculating gains and losses. About saying goodbyes. He left everything he had in Russia to make a new life in a new land. To have better opportunities for his children than he had for himself.
He paid with his life for that risk, but I doubt he would’ve regretted it. He was stronger than I am. He never regretted anything.
But me, now, standing here…I regret it all.
If only I’d told her from the start, I wouldn’t have to bear that look on her face now.
I wouldn’t have to witness Natalie’s love for me going up in flames.
She sits perfectly still. Her back is straight. Her face is pale. Her hands are spread open on her thighs. Around her throat, the necklace I bought her glitters like ice.
In a small voice, she says, “Damon?”
It’s an invitation to continue. Or maybe it’s a plea to stop. I can’t tell.
The only thing I know for sure is that if a person could die from a look, I’d be a dead man.
“He was our accountant.”
Her nostrils flare. Something dark gathers behind her eyes. “You knew him?”
“Yes.”
I can’t take the look on her face, so I turn away, dragging a hand through my hair.
“Max trusted him implicitly. He was brilliant with numbers. Saved the organization a lot of money. Made us a lot, too. The stock market, offshore accounts, international real estate…Damon was a genius. So smart that nobody ever noticed he’d been skimming. That he’d set up hundreds of shell accounts to funnel money into. That he’d been planning his way out for years before he finally fled.”
The clock ticking on the wall seems unnaturally loud. When Nat stays silent, I turn back to her.
She’s a statue.
Cold. Lifeless. Blank. One of those marble sculptures that decorate a tomb.
To deal with the agony clawing its way up my throat, I keep talking.
“He made a deal with the feds. Gave them evidence in return for immunity. Testified against Max at his trial. Provided a huge amount of data, records, ledgers, files. Max was convicted and sentenced to life. Damon went into witness protection. The government gave him a new name. A new identity. A new life. They relocated him here.”
I draw a breath. “And then he met you.”
Motionless, Natalie stares at me. When she speaks, she sounds like she’s been drugged.
“I don’t believe you. David didn’t have a penny to his name. This is lies.”
I pull my cell phone from my pocket, pull up the picture app, swipe through until I find what I’m looking for. Then I hand her the phone.
She takes it from me silently. She stares at the picture on the screen. Her throat works, but she doesn’t make a sound.
“Swipe left. There’s more.”
Her finger moves across the screen. She pauses, then swipes again. She keeps going for several moments, her face growing more and more pale until it’s white.
She stops swiping and says, “Who are these people with him?”
When she turns the phone to face me, I brace myself. Then I look her in the eye.
“His wife and kids.”
Her lips part. The clock ticks. My heart bangs inside my chest like a drum.
“His…wife.”
“He was married when he went into WITSEC. Claudia still lives in the same house. Has no idea what happened to him. He left everything behind, including her.”
Her voice raw, Nat says, “And his children.”
“Yes.”
“He was married with children when we were together.”
“Yes.”
“He embezzled money from the mafia, turned state’s evidence, put Max in jail, abandoned his family…then came here with a new identity and…and…”
“Met you. Proposed.”
Gripping the phone, she lowers it to her lap and closes her eyes. Then she sits there, not moving or saying anything, pale as a ghost and just as lifeless, except for the vein throbbing wildly in the side of her neck.
I’d slit my wrists and bleed out on my knees in front of her if I thought it would make her pain go away, but I know it won’t.
The only thing I can do is keep telling her the truth.
“We didn’t know where he’d gone until last year. Then we made a contact inside the bureau. Someone willing to trade information for cash. He let us know where they’d relocated Damon, gave us his new name, everything. But by then, Damon had already moved on.”
“I’m guessing that moving on happened just over five years ago, right?” Her laugh is small and bitter. “Right. The day before our wedding. Oh god.”
I don’t know what to say, except, “I’m sorry.”
She opens her eyes and stares at me with this hard, hateful look. It’s so vicious, I almost take a step back.
She says, “And you knew. All along, you knew all of this.”
“Natalie—”
“Don’t speak. You don’t get to speak to me anymore.”
“Please. Let me explain.”
Shakily, she stands. She holds the phone out in her trembling hand. “Take it and get out.”
“Listen to me, baby—”
“Get out of my house!”
That scream might as well be a bullet for how much it hurts me. I stand there helpless, shaking my head.
Breathing hard, trembling all over, she says, “You were supposed to kill me, weren’t you? That’s why Max said you betrayed him. You were supposed to come here and find out if I knew where David hid the money or where he went, then kill me, just like Viktor. But instead…”
She laughs. It’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard.
“Instead, you decided to do things differently. You decided to have a little fun first. So you fucked me. Made me fall in love with you. Gave me a ring and told me a million pretty lies.”
I say firmly, “No, Natalie. No.”
“When were you going to start asking me questions about him? Working it into the conversation in subtle ways?”
My voice grows louder. “I wasn’t. This is real. I fell in love with you.”
She gazes at me in anguish, her eyes bright with tears. “Sure. Just like David did. Now get the fuck out of my house, Kazimir.”
She says my given name like a curse.
Though my stomach is sloshing, my blood is boiling, and I can hardly breathe from the pain, I keep my voice steady and hold her gaze. “You don’t want me to leave. You love me. You’re mine.”
Her inhalation is a soft, broken sob. “You’re sick! Look what you’ve done to me! Look!”
She gestures to her face. It’s red now, instead of white. Her eyes are wild. Veins stand out in her neck. Her expression is the equivalent of a building on fire, burning to the ground.
“I can make it up to you.”
“You can go to hell! Max threatened my parents! My parents, Kage! What if he has someone there right now? What if another Viktor is in Scottsdale knocking on my parents’ door as we speak?”
“No. Viktor worked alone, like I do. He’d have planned to come here first, then go there.”
She stares at me in disbelief. “You actually think that should make me feel better, don’t you?”
When I don’t answer, she bolts.
She runs out of the living room and into the kitchen, headed for the back door. I grab her before she can get there and crush her to me, holding her tightly against my chest as she struggles to get away.
“Let me go!”
“Stop for a minute! Listen to me!”
“Fuck off!”
“I love you! I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean anything, you lying son of a bitch!”
She squirms in my arms, shoving against me, desperate for release.
I won’t give it to her.
I kiss her instead.
She refuses to open her mouth for me, twisting her head away. I fist a hand into her hair and hold her head steady, then kiss her again.
This time she lets me thrust my tongue into her mouth. She lets me taste her, hold her, as we breathe hard through our noses, our bodies pressed together tight.
Then I feel the cold muzzle of my handgun pressed against my temple.
She pulled it out of the back of my waistband and stuck it against my skull.
I feel a flash of admiration for my brave, clever girl, but it’s quickly swallowed by despair.
“Back the fuck up,” she says quietly against my mouth.
When I open my eyes, she’s looking straight into them. So I can see clearly that in her own, there’s no shred of warmth, love, or mercy left.
My soul is in ashes. There’s nothing inside of me. I’m a rotted, empty shell.
I slide to my knees at her feet and bow my head. “Do it, then. Without you, I’m dead anyway.”
There’s a long, tense silence. Then she whispers raggedly, “I should.”
She digs the muzzle of the gun into the top of my head.
But something in her voice ignites a tiny spark of hope in my chest. I raise my head and gaze up at her, this woman I adore who I’ve just wrecked.
As she points the gun an inch from my forehead, her finger on the trigger, I stare into her eyes.
“I love you. That’s not a lie. I love you more than anything. More than I want my next breath. I’ll give anything for you to forgive me, and that includes my life.”
I lean forward so the gun rests between my brows. I raise my hands and rest them on her hips.
My heart in my voice, I say, “Kill me if it will take away your pain, love. If it will give you even a little peace, pull the trigger and end me.”
She swallows, hard. Her hands shake. She moistens her lips. With her free hand, she swipes angrily at her watering eyes.
After a long, breathless moment, she exhales heavily and lowers the gun to her side.
Groaning, I throw my arms around her waist and bury my face into her belly. I hold her tightly until she sighs.
“Get off your knees, gangster. I can’t deal with you like this.”
I stand. When I try to take her face in my hands, she pulls away, shaking her head. She holds out my weapon.
“Just take this damn thing, will you?”
I shove the gun under the waistband of my jeans at the small of my back, then reach for her again. But again she withdraws, turning her back to me and wrapping her arms around her body. She goes to the sink and leans against it, looking down.
Her voice very quiet, she says, “What now?”
The relief I feel that she’s not screaming for me to leave is so overwhelming, I almost sink to my knees again. “I put Viktor in the car, but I have to…” I hesitate, not wanting to traumatize her any more.
She says, “Get rid of the body. I get it. Go ahead.”
I should’ve known she’d rally, my Valkyrie queen.
“I’ll be back within the hour.”
She turns her head, speaking over her shoulder. “Where will you take him?”
“The lake.”
She pauses. “Is that where you would’ve taken me? If you hadn’t fallen for me, I mean.”
Oh fuck.
“No more lies, gangster,” she says softly.
It’s a moment before I can get it out. “Yes.”
She turns her head away. Looking at the closed blinds over the sink, she says, “Thank you for being honest.”
It sounds like Fuck off and die, but we don’t have time to argue.
“Don’t answer the door or the phone while I’m gone. Don’t go outside. When I get back, I’ll clean up the rest of it. Then we’ll make a plan.”
“A plan?”
“When Viktor doesn’t check in, Max will send someone else.”
“I see. A plan. That makes sense.”
She’s unnaturally calm, especially considering how hysterical she was only minutes ago. Shock is setting in.
I take a step toward her, my heart aching. “Baby—”
“Just go, Kage. I need a minute to process. When you get back, we’ll talk. I promise.”
I want to hold her. I want to kiss her. I want this awful distance between us to be gone. But for the moment, I’m grateful it’s a truce.
I could be lying in a pool of my own blood right now.
And I have to move fast, because the clock is ticking.
I leave without another word.
When I return an hour later, her house is in total shambles, and she’s gone.
