by Elodie Colt
“Ella, no, don’t say that…” Nathan begs, but I can’t tell if he’s playing along or has taken my words truly to heart.
Regardless, my unanticipated touch makes Luka look down at where my fingers rest on his chest, his face a mask of shock and awe, and the split second he lowers his guard is when I make my move.
I yank the knife from his hand and twist it around, ready to plunge it into his heart, but before I can do so, Vincent smashes into me with an almighty roar.
Everything moves in a blur, and the next thing that registers is Luka’s body crumpling to the floor, with his knife protruding from his chest, and a pair of lifeless eyes staring straight ahead.
But it wasn’t me who’d dealt the deathblow.
It was Vincent.
“What… I… How…”
Weird stuff bubbles out of me as Nathan rushes to my side to help me up and encase me in his arms, but as much as I want to draw comfort from him, I can only gape at the man who just murdered in my place.
“Why did you do this?” I mumble, almost hysteric.
Vincent, strangely unperturbed by what he’s just done, faces me with a pair of steely eyes.
“You don’t deserve his blood on your hands,” is all he says before he addresses his son, the sirens in the distance coming closer. “Take care of Ella and look after Brooke. She will need all the support she can get. And tell Carl to make his damn move already. I can’t stand those two sneaking sultry glances at each other all the time. She deserves better than me anyway.”
Nathan is as stunned as me, and I realize what this is… A goodbye.
He shouldered my sin. He sacrificed his freedom for me—the daughter he doesn’t even know he has. And now he’s on the run, and I have no fucking clue what to say to him.
I wriggle out of Nathan’s embrace, stumbling forward. “Wait, I… Vincent… I have to tell you something, something totally crazy, but I don’t know how—”
“I know, Ella.” He gives me a warm smile that makes it hard to breathe. “I know you are my daughter, and damn, you have no idea how happy I am to finally meet you. I’m sorry we didn’t have the time to get to know each other, but”—he grabs my shoulders and leans down so we’re at eye level—“I promise to find you, okay? I promise.”
And then I’m in his arms, the arms of my father, sobbing into his suit and seeking comfort from a man who’s been a stranger to me all my life. He holds me tight, cupping my head.
“Ella…” he whispers in a strained voice as if sending a prayer up to God, “I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you. I’m sorry I hurt your mother, and I’m sorry you lost her. I’m fucking sorry.”
And just like that, all my resentment toward him, all the revenge I’ve plotted, all the names I’ve wanted to call him fly out the window, making room for gratitude and undiluted love.
“Dad…” I sniff into his shirt, testing the word on my tongue.
Nathan clears his throat. “Well, I’d be happy to call you Dad, too, but this would be just too weird, so we’d better keep it as is, okay?”
He claps his father on the shoulder, and Vincent chuckles.
“Fine by me, son.” He tears himself away from me with a peck on my cheek. “Now, get my daughter the fuck out of here and bring her home. Oh, and happy birthday, Ella.”
Birthday…
Definitely the worst in my life, but… thankfully not the last.
26
Nathan
For the first time in weeks, my pulse is calm instead of pounding in my chest like war drums promising utter carnage.
I press Ella’s trembling form tighter to me, crooning into her hair. She’s been crying for over an hour. Not because of any physical pain or visible wounds, but because of all the sorrow that has mounted inside her over the years, the father she lost, and the freedom she’s never had until now.
The chains holding her captive are no more.
“It’s okay, sweetheart, let it all out,” I mumble against her forehead as she continues to sob.
She snuggles closer to me, curling into a tight ball on the sofa, while I let her heartbreak soak into me and listen to the flames crackling in the fireplace.
When I breezed through Crawford Crescent, all shaken and with a broken girl in my arms, everyone was there to help. Brooke closed the gallery on the spot, Carl called a doctor to check her out, and Nick made sure she got food and stayed hydrated. When she finally fell asleep in my bed, then came the question from Brooke I’d feared most.
“Where is Vincent?”
And like the last time our father was sentenced to leave his home for the next fourteen years, after I’d mustered the courage to tell them what he’d done to save his daughter, Brooke broke into tears and sagged down onto the floor, knowing that she might never get to see her husband again. Carl caught her. At that moment, when he swept her up into his arms, and she clung to him as if her life depended on it, I knew that a brotherly nod between the two of us was enough to convey what Vincent wanted him to do—to take care of his wife and be there for her like he never could.
I let the warmth of Ella’s quivering body seep into me, my eyes on the dark sky outside my windows, but my mind far away. Now that Vincent is on the run, I can’t deny the guilt nagging on my conscience. I’ve wasted the little time we’d had holding a grudge and showering him with nothing but averse affection at best. And what did he do? Love his sons unconditionally, tolerate our cool treatment without so much as a flinch, and sacrifice his freedom for a daughter he’s never met before.
Where did he go, I wonder? Did he contact James to help him keep a low profile? Is he still in town or already across the border? Or did the cops catch him already, sentencing him to life imprisonment? He’s got friends at the NYPD, but I doubt they can lend him a hand here. God, I don’t have it in me to switch on the TV and have his mug shot staring back at me again. Not to mention what it would do to Ella. They never shared a bond, and yet, losing Vincent today cut her deep. She’s biologically programmed to love him, after all.
Ella stirs, and she lifts her head a little, her sobs slowly subsiding. The sight of her face all blotchy and smeared with tears tugs at my heart, and I trail a thumb down her moist cheek. She bites her lip, her gaze on a spot below my chin.
“I think,” she starts in a croaky voice, wiping a hand underneath her snotty nose, “I think it’s time to talk about this.” She waves a hand between the two of us.
Sighing, I nod. “If you’re ready…”
A hard swallow moves her throat. “So… I take it you found the alexandrite ring in your nook?”
“I did.”
“And you know I put it there?”
“I do.”
“Then you know that—”
I grab her face with both hands, saving her the torture. “I already knew that Vincent Crawford was your biological father. It was Nick who put two and two together. Vincent almost suffered a stroke.”
She drags her lip through her teeth again. “And did you suffer one, too?”
I utter a soft chuckle. “Only when it dawned on me that Luka kidnapped you.”
Her perfectly arched eyebrows furrow. “Aren’t you disgusted by me?”
I almost choke on my saliva. “What? Why would you even think that? Because my adoptive father is your real father? You couldn’t have known. Fuck, not even Vincent knew.” My eyes flicker between hers still glinting with worry. Grabbing her shoulders, I give them a little shake. “Listen, this fucked-up gene game doesn’t change anything, do you hear me? And it sure as hell doesn’t change my feelings for you. I love you, Ella.”
She shudders out a breath, and I swear my heart grows wings and flutters up into the air at the sight of the relief swirling in her pretty eyes. And she still loves you, too.
“But is our relationship legal? I mean, aren’t you my step-brother… or something?”
“No idea, but I’ll put my lawyer on it. If shit hits the fan, I’ll make Vincent revoke my adoption.”
>
She gasps. “What? No, you can’t do that! I don’t want to take your father from you. Even if you hated him for what he did, I know you always wanted to have him back.”
“The only person I wanted to have back is you.” I press a hard, long kiss onto her lips.
“But—”
“No buts. Vincent will have my back here. No matter what is written on paper, he will always be part of the family. He will always be Nick’s real father and my father by heart.”
Before she can utter another word, I claim her lips once more, willing to make her see that nothing in the universe will ever keep me from her. Not a DNA strand, not a lucky number, and sure as hell, not a legal formality.
Soon, she ends the kiss to have a good, long yawn, and I chuckle.
“You’re tired. Let’s get you into bed.”
She doesn’t protest when I sweep her up into my arms and carry her into the bedroom. Her eyes are already closed when I lower her down, and as soon as I put the blanket over her, a soft snore comes from her parted lips.
Smiling, I carefully sink down onto the mattress to watch her for a moment. I brush a gentle finger over the dragonfly tattoo on the inside of her wrist. The green darner. It appeared to me twice to show me the way. The fact that it’s still alive, showing up at random places at the weirdest times only to vanish again into thin air is a physical impossibility.
And yet, it happened.
I graze a path from her wrist down to her delicate fingers. The alexandrite ring is still in my pocket. Slowly, I retrieve the square box, open it, and pluck the jewel from its padding. After making sure that my girl is still asleep, I slip the ring onto her finger.
The alexandrite—birthstone of June. And what better day to give it to her if not on the sixth of June?
“Happy birthday, my girl,” I whisper. “This ring always belonged to you. It has just been waiting to get back to its rightful owner.”
27
Luka
Thank God the pain is gone. It had felt as if someone plunged a knife into my heart. It had felt like dying.
Wait… there was a knife inside my chest, wasn’t there?
I blink.
No, actually… I don’t. At least, I don’t feel my eyelids move. Something is missing here. In fact, everything is missing here. And where is here anyway?
Strange place. It’s as if some kind of void has swallowed me. I feel as light as a feather, drifting lazily through the nothingness. Am I high? Maybe I’ve mixed a weird drug cocktail again. Wouldn’t be the first time my chemical experiments knocked me into another universe.
I try to focus on something, but it’s hard without any breakpoints. I can see but not with my eyes. I can hear but not with my ears. I can think but not with my mind. There’s no warm and cold, no up and down. There’s just… peace.
And then it hits me. I’m dead!
As soon as the realization takes root inside me (wherever inside is), something unveils in front of me. Something big and round, with splotches of green and brown and white, and a pretty, blue halo. It’s Planet Earth, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say I’m an astronaut floating through the orbit just sans the spacesuit.
I gaze down at a huge patch of landmass. Something pulls my focus to a particular spot in North America. New York, to be exact.
And then I see her. Sleeping on a huge, soft bed while Nathan Crawford—the man who’s been my enemy since way before Elenka first laid eyes on him—presses a loving kiss onto her forehead. Mysteriously, he’s not my enemy any longer. At least, there’s no roaring beast trying to claw its way through my insides at the mere thought of him touching her, just as I don’t suffer any sort of OCD or insatiable hunger at the sight of her.
“Is this Hell?” I ask no one in particular as I continue to watch the finally reunited couple. This place doesn’t feel like Hell, but I’m not stupid. I’ve done some horrible things in my life. I doubt a ticket through a pair of golden doors is in the cards for me.
“No, it’s not,” a calm, female voice echoes over the space. “There is no Hell, and there is no Heaven. Just the Beyond.”
I turn around to face the woman. At least, that’s what I would have done if I still had limbs to move.
“Marina,” is my astonished response when I feel her presence. Even if I can’t see her with my eyes, she’s as beautiful as I remember her with wavy hair and red lipstick. “Are you here to punish me for my sins?”
She smiles. I don’t know how I know, I just do. “There’s no punishment, only redemption. I will show you.”
Lights start to blink on Earth—first hundreds, then millions. I know each light represents a living person. The brighter ones are connected with soft lines, creating a woven lattice over the entire planet. These are people who have crossed my path at some point in my life.
“Now that you are in the Beyond,” she says in that holy, omnipresent voice, “you can interfere in people’s fate. Give them a little nudge, so to speak.”
The power she’s been speaking of manifests inside me at the same moment, and strangely, I know exactly what to do.
I glance down at the Philippines where Roman Jendarov—Zoya’s father—loiters in the bar he owns with a fat cocktail in hand and two women in bikinis at his side. Ever since he’d moved there to live high on the hog, consuming his weight in booze and sporting a beer belly resembling a balloon, he’s knocked up three women. I’ve never met the man who raised Elenka, but her affection toward him was meager at best.
“Hm, I think an erectile disorder would do it, what do you say?”
Marina laughs. “Oh, you would definitely do the world a favor with that one.”
And with one single thought, I’ve ruined the sex life of a man whose intelligence is as plain as his ambitions.
Next on my list is Kate Dugan, the poor woman who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and suffered my savage impetuosity. I decide to let her win the lottery in two years. She will establish her own dating agency, one that will throw Carl Kelly’s eNtimacy from its pedestal, and adopt a bunch of children from Nigeria.
When I’ve finished, I zoom in on Vincent Crawford. “This one is tough…”
I’ve never been partial to the guy, but now that all my hatred along with any negative feelings I might have had toward specific people has vaporized, I’m not sure what to do with him. No matter if I deserved to die or not, he committed a murder. He was smart enough to outrun the cops, but they will catch him eventually and throw him into prison. Only this time, he has no hope of ever getting out again.
“He’s not a bad man, you know… Not anymore,” Marina muses from next to me, sensing my struggle.
“Then how about this?”
She smiles when the deed is done, approving with a nod. The FBI will catch him in the near future, making his life hell on earth for a few months until they’ll offer him to work for them as a CI in the department for Organized Crime. Brooke Crawford will back out of Crawford Crescent to work for her future husband, Carl Kelly, and Vincent will allot all remaining shares of his business to Nathan, Nick, and Elenka. He will be a big part of Elenka’s life and the father to her she always deserved to have.
And now, my last target. Elenka Jendarov.
There’s not much I can give her other than the happiness she’s already found in her new life. Nathan Crawford will be an amazing husband and protect her from more dangers than I could have ever accomplished.
I glance at Marina. “How about some kids? Two? Maybe three?”
“Make it six,” she says with a wink.
I chuckle. “Six kids? Why?”
“Because six is Nathan’s lucky number,” comes another voice from behind me, and I know immediately who she is—Sarah, Nathan’s biological mother. A woman he’s never met in his life. She giggles. “My doing.”
“What do you mean?”
“My son’s path would have been a rough one if I hadn’t interfered, so I gave him a sign to follow. Six is the s
ymbol of Venus, the goddess of love, so I figured, why not?”
I blink at her. I can tell she loves her son with all her heart which prompts me to ask, “Why did you give him away when he was a baby?”
“I was young and stupid,” she says in a grave tone. “Wasted my life on drugs and got myself knocked up by a stranger. I ran into debts with some bad guys. They threatened to hurt my child if I didn’t pay them back, so I handed my baby over to that woman, Brooke Crawford.” She sighs. “It was the right decision, because those fuckers drowned me in my bathtub the day after.”
A moment of silence stretches on, but the shrug Sarah adds at the end tells me she’s accepted her brutal fate.
“Then six kids it shall be,” I announce.
Elenka hasn’t taken the pill over the last two weeks, so her first child will start to grow come tomorrow morning.
“Good work, Luka,” Marina says when my work is done.
“I’d like to know… How did you intervene in their fate when you came here?”
She smirks. “Well, a few days after I died, the bank Roman owned crashed. He would have committed suicide, so I made him book a vacation to the Philippines where he found a better life and stayed until now. He never liked the cold weather, anyway.”
She nods to another part on Planet Earth where Zoya is currently cooking dinner for her wife, Holly.
“After Zoya confessed to us that she was gay, Roman kicked her out. She became a heavy smoker. Inhaled two packets every day. I made her quit before the cancer could grow in her lungs which would have killed her at the age of thirty.”
The globe spins to stop at the image of Vincent.
“I hated him, you know? He never told me he had a family. A wife, two sons… And then he conducted that stupid heist, and I was out for revenge. Sent him a letter and told him he had a daughter he would never get to see.” She heaves a sigh, her voice turning from hard to gentle. “It was only when I landed here that I saw his remorse. The guilt eating him for what he’d done. So, I gave him a second chance to live his life and erased his kleptomania.”
