by Elodie Colt
I arc an eyebrow at her. “You met your husband at Silent Sins?”
She nods. “You wouldn’t believe how many Silent Sins members have tied the knot. In regards to relationships, Silent Sins has a higher success rate than eNtimacy. Ironic, isn’t it?”
Well, damn. And here I was, thinking I’m the biggest loser on earth for falling in love with my Silent Sins match.
I steeple my hands in front of me. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you haven’t had any Silent Sins dates since your last one with Ella four weeks ago. Because Ella only reported you to get you away from her stalker.” She pauses, puckering her lips. “Because I’ve never seen a better compatibility match of two people who are so adamant to stay away from each other.”
“That’s where you are mistaken,” I counter, trying to ignore the stab in my heart. “You have no idea how many rules I’ve broken to reach her. To get her to talk to me. To get her to fucking look at me.”
“She won’t be able to look away when she sees you for the first time.”
I lean back in my chair again, scrutinizing her. I understand what she’s telling me. For Ella, I’m still Ross. A faceless man with an unknown identity. But as soon as we’re face-to-face, I’m anchoring myself to her in the real world. I will have a name, a face, and a body she can touch outside the Room.
“I care about Ella,” Kate says, pulling me back to the present. “Silent Sins was a good experience for her. She has learned to trust, to cope with her fears, to live in the moment. I don’t want her to throw everything away because her past caught up to her.” She takes her bag and rises to her feet. “I already tried to contact her, but I couldn’t get through. She probably changed her number. You already broke the rules, and I know you’ve got the means to break some more if needs must. You are the only person who can save her.”
Save her? Christ, haven’t I done everything in my power to make sure Luka Sokolov won’t cross the city border again? What else is there for me to do?
‘You have to cut a diamond with a diamond,’ Brooke said.
But I don’t want to cut her or polish her or put her in a pretty setting. I want to see her sparkling facets as well as the dull ones. I want to see the smooth edges and the rough ones. I want her to keep all the flaws and inclusions and asymmetries.
Ella Jenkins is the rarest gem I’ve ever seen, and I’ve lost her somewhere in the earth.
Fuck, I can’t give up. I have to find her.
And when I do, I will never let her go again.
4
Nathan
As soon as Kate Dugan leaves my office, I shoot straight for the garage and tug myself into my car, with only one purpose in mind.
Getting to Ella right now.
I rev the engine of my BMW, breaking every speed limit and irritating lame-ass drivers as I snake through the lanes. What the fuck am I going to say to her? How is she going to react when I show up on her doorstep? Maybe she will throw a fit. Maybe she will break out in tears. Maybe she will slap me so hard, I’m going to run around with a red cheek for the next two days.
I don’t give a fuck. I just want to find her. To be face-to-face with her. To watch her lips moving as she screams at me. To see her eyes blazing with her rage. To see how she cocks her hip as she demands answers.
A red light forces me to hit the brakes, and I curse, slapping a hand onto the steering wheel.
Silent Sins was never supposed to last. Kate said she’d rarely seen matches like Ella and me who’ve stuck it out in the Room for so long. Everyone would get crazy at some point, she said. Good to know. I was already about to hire a shrink to set me straight.
My hands clench around the steering wheel as I near the huge apartment complex on Brighton Beach boulevard. No idea if Ella is home. Doesn’t matter. I’ll lie low the entire night if I have to.
I glide my BMW into the first spot on the curb, ignoring the big ‘no parking’ sign. Hit me with all the tickets in New York, officers, or tow me off. I really don’t care.
My palms are sweaty as I kill the engine, and I shuffle out of my suit jacket before I step out with my heart racing in my chest. The spring breeze does nothing to cool my overheated skin as I make my way over to the entrance door of building number six, my eyes riveted on a window of Ella’s apartment on the sixth floor. Alas, I can’t see shit from this angle, but who knows, maybe she’s been waiting for her knight in shining armor, letting down her hair like Rapunzel.
None of that happens, though, and I scan the list of names on the wall. Ella Jenkins. Sixth floor. Sixth apartment.
My stomach makes a silly flip as I lift my finger to ring the bell. What if she answers? I could pull the plumber trick. Tell her that facility management discovered a leak in the water pipes. Or I could slip into the role of the delivery guy, pretending to have a package for her.
I shake my head. Don’t be a fucking coward, dude.
Blowing out all my air at once, I hit the metal knob. The buzz of the bell is annoyingly loud, and I fumble with Ella’s pendant as I wait for the door to open. Seconds tick by, my shoe tapping on the ground.
Suddenly, the door clicks open, and I whirl around only to see a boy dashing out with his bicycle in tow. I slip inside and start up the staircase, slowing my steps when I reach her apartment.
I swallow despite the ache in the back of my throat. A dirty, tawny mat lies in front of the door, printed with ‘HI. I’M MAT.’ I smirk, but then frown when I notice a chunk of broken metal and cut-off cables dangling from the top corner of the wall. Looks as if someone had ripped out a camera installed there. Guess it makes sense now why Wayde lost access to her security system. It just leaves the question: What happened?
I lift my hand and knock three times. Holding my breath, I try to catch any footsteps. Something creaks behind me, and I turn around to see an old lady hobbling out, her cane tapping on the tiles. She scowls at me with narrowed eyes.
“Uh, good day, Ma’am,” I say to lower her suspicions, but her cantankerous expression stays in place, deepening her wrinkles.
“She was out of her mind, that girl,” she croaks, pointing at the remains of the camera. “Took a rolling pin and started smashing around like mad.”
Dread fills my insides as I flash a glance at Ella’s door before I veer my gaze back to the woman.
“Do you know if Miss Jenkins is home?”
She shrugs. “Haven’t seen her the entire week. Last time I saw her, she left with a bunch of bags.”
I nod to the corner of the wall. “Any idea why she did this?”
She snorts, the motion prompting her to cough out her lungs and spit into a used tissue. “That girl’s crazy if you ask me. Always locked herself up inside her four walls, never greeted anyone, and woke up the entire neighborhood with her damn motorcycle. I even saw her with a gun once. Maybe she put a bullet into her head, who knows…”
I grind my teeth, heat flushing my body at the nasty words leaving her mouth. She coughs into her tissue once more, making me wish she’ll choke on her phlegm and drop dead on the spot.
“You should go back inside and get some rest,” I say in a darker tone, letting her know that our conversation is done. “I can take it from here, thank you.”
With a grumble, she shuffles back inside. I wait until she’s gone before I rap on Ella’s door again, more vigorously this time. No answer.
I slap my palm against the wood, hanging my head. What if she moved out of town? What if she decided to wipe the slate clean and start a new life elsewhere?
I stare at her door, brooding. I need to get in there, see if she left anything that could give me a clue as to where she went. The door is locked, and I’m not exactly an expert on breaking into other people’s homes.
But you know someone who is.
“Fuck,” I mutter, raking a hand through my hair and yanking out my phone. Vincent picks up on the first ring.
“I need your help,” I say flat out.
H
e remains unfazed by my harsh tone. “What kind of help?”
“The only kind you’re good for.”
I spend the rest of the afternoon poking around the block in hopes of spotting my girl somewhere (no success here) and checking the garage for her bike (no success here, either). Ella is gone. I just need to find out if she left for good or only temporarily.
Vincent arrives at Brighton Beach right after night has settled. I position myself in front of the old trout’s door to obscure the peephole while Vincent pulls one of his con-tricks with a picklock, a credit card, and a smug look on his face.
Making sure the coast is clear, I venture inside Ella’s home. I’ve only taken three steps forward when it hits me like a cannonball.
Her scent.
I swear, if I were alone right now, I’d sniff every nook and corner just to see where the whiff of green tea is the strongest, and where the aroma of passion fruit begins.
Vincent activates the flashlight on his phone.
“You’re alright?” he asks when I stand there like the creepy guy in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer using his sense of smell to find his next victim. He sighs. “Listen, what I said earlier—”
“Save it,” I cut him off, my strained voice conveying that he’d better not rock the boat right now unless he fancies another crook in his nose. He has the good sense to keep his mouth shut and follows me in silence as I roam Ella’s apartment.
It’s modern yet simple with gray accents, fluffy carpets, and dust-free surfaces. She likes to keep it clean, just like me. A few Russian dictionaries are fanned out on a desk next to a computer with a 24-inch monitor, and a yoga mat lies in the middle of the small but cozy living room.
But the longer I scour about, the more I realize that she hasn’t been here for some time. The palm tree in the corner is dehydrated, its leaves withered, and succumbing to gravity. The cupboards in her bathroom are empty—no toothpaste, no shampoo, not even a fucking tampon.
“Here,” Vincent says, and I walk over to him as he picks up the remains of a phone. “Looks as if someone destroyed it on purpose.”
I curse. “Shit. So much for my idea to track her GPS.”
“Maybe Wayde can make use of it.”
He lets the phone vanish into his pocket, and I continue my exploration. The kitchen speaks of her passion for cooking—well equipped with all kinds of kitchen devices, an array of spices neatly arranged on a cupboard, and a big pile of cookbooks stacked on a shelf.
“Doesn’t look like a break-in, if you ask me,” Vincent muses. “Your girl left this place. Willingly.”
He swipes his flashlight over the space, and my heart pummels into my stomach when I notice stacks of aquarium supplies beneath a small table, but… no aquarium.
She’s gone, and I have no clue where she went. No note to give me an address. No plane ticket to give me a destination. Not one fucking hint.
And that’s when reality crashes over my head.
I came too late.
5
Ella
I’m as energetic as a stoned slug. Thinking back to the last days I’ve spent at Zoya’s, the most productive thing I’ve accomplished was setting up my stuff in Holly’s old children’s room—a task that was done in five minutes.
My laptop rests on my lap, heating my thighs, but my empty stare is on my new phone. It stays unresponsive in my hand. No messages from Ross. No messages from anyone.
Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I shove my laptop away, scramble out of the creaky bed, and traipse over to my aquarium sitting on a rickety Victorian art table. Using my overlong nails, I rip open a bag of blood worms and plop a handful into the water to feed my three remaining dragonflies. Skitters and Bitsy hurry to catch their food while Hopper remains motionless on the small rock jutting out of the water, his two fiery red eyes directed at me.
“Don’t give me that dirty look, boy,” I mumble. “I know this is not home, but you’re about to see the big, big world soon, so just hang on a little longer, okay?”
He snaps his jaw, and I unveil a sad smile before I veer my gaze to the only window in the room. Instead of a six-story plunge down and nothing but brick roofs lining the horizon, I have an unobscured view into a lovely garden where a sprinkler rotates on its axis to water the bushes and flowers. Vines of ivy snake along the white-painted window panes and gray stucco sidings up to the steeply pitched roof, giving the old Tudor-style house a charming storybook character.
An array of vases in various sizes decorate the windowsill. Their design reminds me of the stuff grandma hoarded in her house. Dusky pink porcelain painted with flowers in all kinds of colors. They clink on the wood whenever someone tramps on the floorboards above, or a heavy storm rattles the foundation. I hate them.
And I hate that there are six in total.
Puckering my lips, I flick my forefinger against the smallest vase. It wobbles for a second before it topples over, rolls over the edge, and drops to the floor. It shatters on impact, breaking into a hundred porcelain shards. I heave a sigh. Holly won’t mind. She told me she’d never found the time to get rid of the old junk since she inherited the house and moved in here with Zoya. Guess I did her a favor.
My phone knock-knocks, and I startle, whirling around to eye the screen lighting up with an unread message. The second it takes me to remember that I’ve deleted the Silent Sins app, a god-awful feeling of hollowness spreads in my chest. I rub a palm against my breastbone where the dragonfly pendant used to warm my skin, and amble over to my phone lying on my bed. I growl. My new telephone company has sent me yet another bullshit welcoming text.
Collapsing onto the mattress, my thumbs punch the digital keyboard as I navigate to the settings to change the ring tone. If I want to forget about Ross, I need to shove every memory of him into a never-meant-to-be drawer in my head. I’m even sleeping with the bedside light on, so I don’t fantasize about his voice echoing in the darkness.
But every time I wipe out a reminder of him, it feels like chopping off a limb. The pain exploding in my heart whenever my stupid, masochistic mind conjures a flashback rivals the agony I felt when Mom died. How fucked up is that? I left him. It was my decision. I turned my back on Silent Sins to protect him.
And yet, every day I have my phone in my hand, I navigate to the app store and let my thumb hover over the Silent Sins app. Every day I’m waging an inner war, seconds away from installing that damn app just to reread all his messages, to remember the secrets we shared, to see the picture of Crawly sitting on his shoulder. My account is active for another week. I could log in one last time. I could text Ross, tell him that I’m sorry for how things ended between us, explain to him that—
“No!” I reprimand myself, flinging my phone onto the pillow and launching to my feet.
I had a reason to lock him out, and it’s hanging right next to the aquarium—a dead dragonfly cruelly nailed to a piece of paper. Luka’s warning, one I won’t forget so fast. Spidey’s wings are getting brittle. Not long, and he’ll crumble to dust. I could have buried him somewhere, but I kept him as a reminder. A reminder to never let any man close as long as Luka Sokolov roams this world.
It’s only a matter of time until he finds out my new number. Chances are he already knows I’ve moved to live here with Zoya and Holly for the time being. It wasn’t my idea. They could both become Luka’s targets, and I’d never forgive myself if something happened to them. Actually, I planned to go to Sierra Leone (that was where my finger landed when I spun the globe in my living room), but Zoya threw a tantrum and thwarted me by nicking my passport, credit card, and the fucking keys for my bike.
My phone pings with my new ring tone, and I groan. If it’s that stupid telephone company again, I’m going to switch to a prepaid.
I stomp over to my bed and fetch the device. It’s a message from Bex.
Bex: Got your new number from Holly. Wanna meet this week for coffee or something?
“Shit,” I mutter to myself, clawing a h
and through my slightly greasy hair.
I’d totally forgotten about her. Come to think of it, I’d put her on the back burner the entire time. We’d meet at her place, spend the night with movies and sex, and then I’d walk out the door with dirty fantasies about Ross. I’ve never invited her to go out with me. I’ve never even called her. No idea why she isn’t sick yet of chasing me like a dog.
I ogle the screen, tapping a finger against my lips. That girl fell in love with me, and I’m treating her like shit. She deserves better.
Gathering my wits, I press the call button and put the phone to my ear.
“Hello, beautiful,” Bex’s drawl comes over the speaker.
“Hey.”
“You didn’t tell me you had a new number. I sent some nude pics to your old one.”
She chuckles, and I force a laugh out, too. “Sorry, I kind of forgot to send out a message to all my contacts.”
“It’s fine. So, wanna meet sometime this week?”
“Uh, yeah, well…” I scratch my head, struggling for words. “Listen, things are quite complicated right now, and I’m in the middle of figuring out—”
“Ella,” she cuts me off in a consoling tone. “You don’t need to explain. We can keep this casual.”
Casual, right… Where have I heard that one before?
I wince. “Bex, I can’t. Casual doesn’t work for me, and everything else is just not in the cards right now. You deserve more commitment than what I can give you.”
The moment of silence that follows floods me with dread.
“You’re breaking up with me on the phone?” she says at last, sounding surprised and hurt.
My eyebrows squish together. So much for casual, then.
“It’s not a break-up, Bex,” I argue, unable to keep the annoyance from my voice. “We’ve never been together.”
