After a night of tossing and turning, with hands grasping me every time I closed my eyes, I’m feeling pretty shitty as I head down for breakfast.
“Ember?” a familiar feminine voice that I’ve not heard in years sounds as I enter the dining room, and when I swivel my head, I have to blink.
“Iris?” My brows furrow, my mind taking a hot minute to process the fact that my old friend is here, at Serene Haven.
She looks, well, pretty rough to be honest. Her long, wheat-blonde hair is tied in a messy bun, her slight frame engulfed in a massive hoodie with some kind of grim reaper printed on it. I frown more as I remember always admiring her quirky boho style, so the leggings and hoodie are not like what I used to know.
“Hey,” she says softly, getting up from her seat and coming towards me. The circles under her eyes are as dark as mine, and my chest tightens thinking about the reasons she might be here. I learned yesterday that Serene Haven specialises in helping victims of sexual violence, both male and female, although they are very careful about keeping us separate until we are ready to face the opposite sex.
“Hi,” I answer back, not sure what to say. I can’t exactly ask her how she is, there’s a reason we’re both here, and it’s not because we’re fine and dandy. “Long time, huh?”
She nods, swallowing. “It’s been too long, really. I–I’m sorry we lost touch after school,” she stutters out, and a pang runs through me. I met her when we moved to Chelsea, and we used to be super close, but her dad sent her to some fancy finishing school after we finished our exams while I went to college.
“Me too.” I nibble my lip and then decide that having a friend here might just be exactly what I need. “Can I join you?” I indicate the table she was sitting at, and a smile tugs her lips upwards, reminding me of all the times we hung out and spoke about our wishes and dreams for the future.
“I’d really love that,” she replies.
“Fab. I’ll just get something to eat and come over.”
I hurriedly grab some delicious-looking pastries and make my way to her. I wince when I sit down, my stitches pulling slightly, and she gives me a look that’s so understanding it breaks my heart.
Swallowing, not quite ready to talk about the shitshow that my life became, I take a bite of my croissant. “So, how was finishing school?”
Her nose wrinkles and a small laugh falls from my lips. “It was…boring as fuck to be honest.” We both chuckle. “They had us learning all about setting up dinner parties, being the most gracious hostess, and how to run a household.” I grimace, remembering that her dad always wanted her to settle down with one of his associates’ sons, but what she really wanted was to start her own sustainable fashion brand. “How was college?”
I have to take a sip of my orange juice; the pastry clinging to my suddenly dry throat. “It was good…but then Dad took me out.”
Her brows shoot up and I sigh. Might as well get this part over with. “Dad remarried, and they thought it best that they homeschooled me with my stepbrothers.” I look down and realise my fingers have pulled apart the rest of the croissant. Brushing the flakes of pastry off my fingertips, I glance up to see the questions burning in her eyes and I huff a laugh. “Four older stepbrothers, to be exact.” The way her eyebrows shoot up is comical, but then I remember her going through a phase of being obsessed with books about romances between step-siblings. “Oh just ask, Iris.”
“Are they hot?” she blurts out, then covers her mouth with a gasp that has me laughing. It feels good, after so much heartache.
“The most gorgeous men I’ve ever met,” I tell her, biting my lower lip. You know what they say, in for a penny… “They, that is we, are together. They are everything to me, I’m not sure how I would have coped with Dad passing and…everything, if not for them.”
Her surprise is replaced with lowered brows, and her small hand reaches out and grips mine. “I’m sorry about your dad, Ember.” She squeezes my hand and tears prick at my eyes. “I know he was important to you.”
Iris knows the complicated relationship I had with my dad, that he wasn’t really there for me. We bonded over the fact that both of us were raised by single dads, that we didn’t have a mother around. Although her’s left when she was about four and her dad wasn’t distant like mine.
“Thanks,” I whisper before clearing my throat. “How’s your dad?” I know as soon as I ask that it was the wrong thing to say, her entire face shutting down as a haunted look enters her hazel eyes.
“He…” She trails off and swallows, then closes her eyes and just focuses on breathing for a few moments. “He left.”
It’s my turn for my eyebrows to shoot up, and the way her body trembles tells me that what has happened since is not a happy tale.
“You don’t need to talk about it, Iris,” I assure her, but she shakes her head, opening her eyes. Moisture clings to her lashes, and a lump forms in my throat.
“I want to, need to get it out, otherwise it’ll fester. That’s what Dr Michaels says anyway,” she rasps, taking another inhale, her fingers gripping mine tightly. “It’s complicated.” She laughs, but it’s painful sounding, not joyous. “He sold me to the Russian mafia in exchange for a business debt.”
Fuck.
“That’s…” I have no idea what to say. Well, I know exactly what to say, but I’m sure she already knows it.
“Fucked up? Yep,” she says, but then a small smile tugs her lips upwards. “But Nickolai was there, so it wasn’t all bad.”
My mind races, then I remember. “Nickolai, Sergi’s son?” I question, recalling her talking about him often being around when she was a child and blushing when she spoke of him after they became teens. “The good-looking one?”
She chuckles. “Yes, that one. He…helped me, then got me away, took me to Hunter and his Shadows.” Her cheeks flush at the mention of Hunter, and I wonder if she’s in a similar kind of relationship to me.
“You been messing with the Shadowman?” I tease, and we both giggle. We used to love watching Disney films together on Sunday afternoons, uncaring if that made us look uncool to the rest of the rich brats of our high school. “You knew them from before though, something to do with Hunter’s sister?”
“Willow, yes, I helped her get away after…” She doesn’t finish, looking away for a moment, and I remember her being upset at the time over what happened to Hunter’s sister. “Anyway, Nickolai took me there and they kept me safe.” Her eyes slam shut and her lips tremble. “Until the Russians found me again.”
My stomach sinks, feeling like it’s full of lead, and I reach over to take her other hand in mine, squeezing them both. Hot tears pool in my eyes, knowing deep in my gut that we’ve experienced some of the same pain at the hands of others.
“My stepbrothers couldn’t save me either,” I confess, and her eyes open, tears falling down her cheeks. “Couldn’t s–stop what happened.”
“Oh, Ember.” Then she’s pulling me to her, and we’re crying and trembling in each other’s arms, letting out all the anguish at a world that would allow such terrible things to happen.
