Kat
I sit in the window booth of the restaurant for a solid fifteen minutes before I get restless. I drank my coffee and ate the chocolate cake, and Adrian still hasn’t returned.
It’s rude.
I cling to my indignation for another ten minutes before the tendrils of misgiving creep in.
Adrian left me here.
No, no, he didn’t. Surely not. He told me to stay.
Oh God! He totally left me!
A phone rings at our table, and I jump. I look under the table. In the shopping bag. Finally, I spot it in Adrian’s seat.
I suck in a hard breath when I realize it’s mine.
He left me my phone.
Maybe it’s him!
I snatch up the phone and swipe before I see who’s calling.
My dad.
“H-hello? Papa?”
“Kateryna,” my dad snaps. “Are you all right?”
My eyes fill with tears although I’m not even sure what I’m crying over. “Yes.” I don’t sound convincing.
“Where are you? Put him on the phone.”
I look around, as if expecting to find Adrian nearby, but of course, he’s nowhere to be found.
He ghosted me.
Is this a trap? Is Adrian hiding somewhere nearby, so he can kill my father when he arrives?
I can’t even think straight. My mind is fuzzy, and a slow throbbing has started at my temples. Worst of all is a rising panic that makes my palms cold and clammy and my heart race.
“I-I’m not sure. Um…I’m staying at the Radisson Blu Astrid. Room 434. I’ll meet you there.” I end the call before he can answer and stand up from the table.
I need to get out of the restaurant before I start crying. I pick up the shopping bag and my purse and dig in it for a credit card as I stumble toward the door. I thrust it at our waiter when he hurries over.
“The gentleman already took care of the bill,” he tells me smoothly. “He asked me to give you this.”
He hands me a folded note, which I snatch and hold with trembling fingers as if it is my lifeline.
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” I say breathlessly, rushing out of the restaurant.
Once outside, I gulp the cold air, trying to calm my racing heart. I open the note and stand under a streetlight to read it.
Kat,
I’m so sorry for the torture I put you through. It was wrong of me to involve you, and I will regret how I treated you until the day I die.
I don’t expect your forgiveness, but I want you to know that for you, I have halted my vendetta against your father. You changed me, and you changed my heart.
You know my name and where I live. Do what you need to do.
I will think of you throwing pots. Finding your center. Being bright, beautiful you.
You took my heart, and I don’t want it back.
A
“Adrian,” I whisper, pressing the note to my chest as tears stream down my cheeks. “You left me.”
I now know Delaney was rightI have abandonment issues.
Because I really shouldn’t feel like my limbs have just been torn from my body. Nothingnothinghas ever hurt so badly as this.
I know the note was full of love. It was an apology and an honoring. But I want none of it.
I just want Adrian back.
Damn him! How could he do this to me? Could he really think him leaving me was a gift?
I suppose the gift is my father living. And Adrian couldn’t very well stick around with my father still living.
My stomach churns wondering what I’m going to do about my dad.
Do what you need to do.
As if. There’s no way I’m going to give up Adrian’s identity to my homicidal father.
My homicidal, sex-trafficking father.
Ugh. I don’t even want to return to the hotel. I don’t know how I’ll look my dad in the eye again without wanting to puke. I find a bench to sit on, so I can gather myself and think. I need to get a taxi or Uber. I need to get my story straight.
I unlock my phone to order a car, and I see the text messages are open. A whole thread between Adrian and my dad. The photos of me. His demands. My father’s replies.
I read through them.
The money went into my account? I open my bank app to check the balance and suck in my breath.
Almost four million pounds.
It’s still there. Adrian didn’t take it. He should haveit will be harder for me to make up a story about my captor when…
Wait.
I re-read the texts. A giddy-sick feeling comes over me as I consider my latest idea.
Yes…it could work. My dad will blow a gasket, but it’s better than him chasing down Adrian.
I open the Uber app and order a car.
I can do this. I suck in a shaky breath, hold it and let it out slowly to the count of ten, the way Delaney taught me.
I can totally do this.
Adrian
“I need the first flight to Chicago.”
I’m at the airport. After leaving Kat in the restaurant, I swung back to pick up my duffel from the hotel then headed straight here. There’s a hole in my heart the size of a tree trunk, and distance seems the best solution.
Besides, Leon Poval is probably already scouring the city for me. Funny how a week ago that would’ve been the best possible news. But now that I’ve resolved to leaving him untouched, it’s a big problem.
A worse problem will be if he shows up in Chicago. But I’ll deal with that when it happens.
Correctionwe’ll deal with that. The bratva will have my back. And I wouldn’t cry too hard if one of them had to take Poval out since I couldn’t in good conscience do it.
“The first flight we have is tomorrow at 8 a. m.”
Damn. I was hoping for some kind of red eye leaving tonight. “I’ll take it.” I hand over a different passport and credit card than I used at the hotel and take the tickets. I consider staying the night at the airport, but it seems like it might attract attention, so I leave, taking a taxi to the closest hotel.
I get there and toss the duffel bag on the bed and walk in a circle with my hands on my head. I don’t want to be here. The hotel room reminds me of Kat. Everything reminds me of Kat.
I should’ve stayed at the airport. I deserve the discomfort of sleeping upright in an airport lounger.
I pace around the small room, making laps until I run into a wall and bang my forehead on it.
Fuck!
I did the right thing. I know I did. I should feel better than I do.
I don’t even care about my revenge. I don’t feel like I let Nadia down although I have. Except I know now that it wasn’t for her. She didn’t need me to do this. I may have told myself that story, but it wasn’t true. I came on this fucked-up journey for myself. I felt violated by Poval on behalf of my sister, and I was the one who wanted revenge.
It was a stupid, glorified alpha male endeavor that doesn’t fix or right anything for Nadia.
All I did was hurt Kat.
But she got the last laugh.
Because right now, it feels like a grenade went off in the center of my chest, leaving the whole cavity gaping open. Torn. Bleeding. And most of all, empty.
I let myself indulge a little fantasy about seeing Kat again. Maybe I’d go to Liverpool. I wouldn’t let her see meI’d do a better job tailing her this time. But I’d just get to see her. To be near her. To know she’s okay. Maybe to step in if anyone fucked with her again.
Gospodi, that’s stupid.
Of course, I’m not going to Liverpool.
I can’t ever see Kat again, and that’s the part that fucking kills me.
Ravil calls, and I pick up.
“You actually answered my call.” He’s going to keep busting my balls for a while on this one. “Interpol wants Poval’s location,” he tells me. “I just texted you the phone number of who you should contact. He’s wanted in Ukraine, Italy, and Romania. Also, the U. S. would file extradition papers to bring him over here for charges of sex trafficking.”
“I’m letting him go.”
Ravil’s silent for a moment. I wait for him to rip me a new one about the danger I put our cell in over the way I handled this, but all he says is, “Your decision.”
“Thank you. I made it.”
“If you change your mind, Interpol knows he’s in Antwerp and are awaiting your call.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
“All right. What do you need from us, Adrian?”
“I let Kateryna go. I’m coming home on the first flight out in the morning.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Yeah. Da skorava.” I end the call.
The heaviness in the pit of my stomach hasn’t lessened one bit.
The thought of returning homeor to what has become homeshould be a relief. Nadia needs me. I will be with my bratva brothers. But I can’t even picture myself there.
I’ve changed so much in the past four days. Kat changed me. And I don’t even know how I’ll make it through one day without her.
Kat
In the Uber on the way to the hotel, I take off Adrian’s leather jacket and lift it to my face to breathe in his scent. At least I have this one thing of his to remember him by.
I stuff it in the shopping bag and put on the new one before I get out.
In the hotel, I find the door to our hotel room ajar and the room filled with men. Six pistols swing and point at me.
I drop the shopping bag and lift my hands in the air. “Easy, boys,” I say in my mother tongue.
My father sits in the shadows in the chair by the window.
“Papa.”
He signals to his men, and two of them push past me into the hallway to inspect it.
“Where is he?”
“Oh, see that’s the thing.” I toss my hair and stride in like I’m the queen of the castle. “There is no he.”
My father’s eyes narrow. “What are you talking about?”
“I needed to know for myself if it was true.”
“What are these riddles?” he snaps.
“You sex traffic women. I found out all about it.” None of this is a lie, and I let my disgust and bitterness show as fury, even though I’m trembling with fear. This isn’t my usual demeanor with my father. I can be petulant and bratty, but that still came from a lack of power.
This is the first time I’ve met my dad as an equal. A woman, not a child. For the first time, I’m not afraid of losing his lovea love I probably never had in the first place.
“I wanted you to see how it felt to believe your own daughter was being abused the way those women are.”
My father surges to his feet, and it takes everything in me not to flinch. The truth is, as much as I desperately wanted this man to love me, as much as I sulked and bratted and played the opposite role of good little girl, underneath it all, I’m terrified of him.
I’ve seen him kill a man right in front of me. Not recentlyit was years ago when I was quite youngone of his men angered him, and he slit his throat in our living room. My mom had grabbed me and locked the two of us in a bathroom until my father apologized and promised he’d never let his wife or daughter see violence in their home again. I think I compartmentalized that incident because I didn’t know how to reconcile it with the man I needed in my life to survive.
But I don’t need him anymore. I honestly don’t want him anymore. If Adrian had taken the time to ask me what I wanted, I could have told him that. If he thinks sparing my father was a gift to me, he’s wrong.
He stalks to me now and fists my new coat to shake me. “What are you saying?” he shouts.
I beam up at him like I’m proud. “I kidnapped myself,” I tell him.
He releases the jacket and backhands me. I hit the floor, pain exploding in my cheek. I’m both shocked and unsurprised. He’s never hit me before, but I certainly knew he was capable of it.
Determined not to break, I cling to my indignation and scramble up to my feet. “How did it feel?” I demand.
“Leave us,” my father commands his men. “Go to the hangar.” They file out of the room, shutting the door behind them.
I can’t decide if it’s better or worse to be alone with him.
He slaps me again, this time with an open hand, and I realize my old life has finally and completely crumbled. I can never go back to being that needy unloved girl who was acting out to get her father’s attention. This is it. I’m all grown up.
And I have no idea how I will come out of this.