by Ella Miles
I stare across at my therapist, who now has a raised eyebrow as he waits for me to answer his question.
What was his question again?
Oh, right. It was how does losing the love of my life make me feel?
“Devastated,” I say. What else does he want me to say? It feels like my heart was ripped from my chest. Like my soul was crushed. My will to live taken. My very existence squashed. But I choose only one word; I’m too exhausted to say more.
This is my second appointment for the day, having already been to the OBGYN, who basically yelled at me for not eating enough and set up an ultrasound for next week to check on the health of the baby. So now I’m eating, I’m taking my vitamins, I’m going to therapy to deal with my pain. I’m doing everything I can for this baby.
I just hope it’s enough.
Evan frowns—clearly I said the wrong thing.
“I think we need to backtrack. You’ve lost a lot of people in your life. You’ve been betrayed by people you thought you loved. You’ve been hurt countless times. I think your pain is more than just about losing the man you loved. And I think letting go of that pain is going to be the hardest for you. You need to start smaller. Forgive someone of something smaller, let go of some smaller pain. Can you do that?”
Can I let go of something smaller? Let go of some other pain I’m dealing with?
Maybe.
But I’m more confident in front of my therapist. “Yes.”
He smiles gently. Then reaches over to his side table and grabs a piece of paper with hearts all over it and a pen. He hands them both to me.
I raise an eyebrow at the heart stationary.
He grins and shrugs. “The hearts make the paper more special.”
I nod.
“Write down something painful. Someone painful. Make it small. At least, smaller than letting go of the man you love. Write a goodbye. And let that pain go. Not to forget, but just so you can move on.”
I nod.
I don’t think I can. I don’t think I can let any of the pain I’m feeling go, but I’ll try.
The baby kicks again, and I wince.
At first, the kicks felt wonderful. Like tiny little butterflies, but each day the baby learns how to kick harder. The doctor said they shouldn’t be painful yet, but I disagree. They are very painful.
Evan stares at me. “You okay?”
“Yes, just the baby is kicking.”
“You are very brave, Katherine. And strong. You can do this, for your baby.”
“Thank you.”
I stand and walk out, armed with my paper and pen.
My father told me to text him, and he’d pick me up when I was done with my appointments, but I decide to take my therapist’s advice. I walk down to the bridge overlooking a small creek.
This seems like the best place to let go of some pain.
But where to start?
My parents.
Zeke.
Langston.
Liesel.
Enzo.
None of them seem right to let go of. He said let go of the pain, not them.
I can do this.
I don’t want to talk about my parent’s deaths. I feel like I’ve already come to term with Zeke’s death.
Langston.
My father gave me an update on this last week, but I wish he hadn’t. Because he confirmed Langston and Liesel died that night. Enzo survived and has disappeared. But Langston and Liesel died.
Because of me—they are dead.
I couldn’t save them.
I can save Enzo.
Langston—I have to let go of the pain I feel at his loss.
I write his name down at the top of the stationary with the hearts. And the rest just floods out of me…
“You don’t have to hold my hair back every time I puke,” I say.
He grins. “Yes, I do.”
“No, you really don’t. I’m disgusting and gross.”
“Yes, you are.”
I moan and then puke some more. “You are supposed to make me feel better, not agree with me.” My head hangs over the toilet as Langston sits behind me, holding my hair back and rubbing my back.
He laughs. “Just a minute ago you were telling me I shouldn’t even be here, but now you are telling me how to do my job.”
“Yes,” I say with a grin.
“Fine, you are beautiful, not disgusting. Is that better?”
“No,” I smile.
“How about I tell you the truth?”
I roll my eyes. “Fine.”
“The truth is I’m jealous.”
“Jealous? Of my puke-fest?”
“Yes, despite what you think, you have a future. No matter what happens to you and Enzo, you have a part of that love you two have to take with you forever. You have a piece of him no one can take away. And yes, the result right now is puking over the toilet, with a man you don’t care about rubbing your back, instead of doing it with the man you love, but in the end, you get to experience that love in your baby. It’s beautiful. And I’m jealous.”
“You’ll have that someday, when the right woman comes along.”
He exhales, his goofy smile leaving his face. “That’s not my destiny. I’m not a one-woman kind of man. I’m a playboy. I’m a loyal soldier. I don’t want my own empire. I don’t want the fairytale. I want to die fighting for the people I love—and that won’t be a woman who sleeps in my bed.”
“Hey, I sleep in your bed.”
He chuckles. “I meant, I won’t die for a woman I fuck. I’ll die protecting the Black empire. I’ll die protecting Enzo, protecting you, protecting your baby. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I swallow the lump in my throat as I look into his eyes. Langston loves me. Not in the same way Enzo does. But he loves me all the same. He would die for me. He would die for my baby.
I don’t deserve his love. I could argue and say that’s not what I want. That I don’t want him to die like Zeke did. But that would dishonor the love he feels. So I don’t tell him that.
I wrap my arms around him and say, “I love you too, Langston. But Liesel—”
“I can never love someone who can’t love me back. Liesel doesn’t love me.”
I scrunch my face. “Are you sure? Because—”
“I’m sure. You don’t know our history. There is nothing that could make her love me. Or me truly love her. You and Enzo come first.”
I write everything that Langston means to me. How much I love him. How thankful I am for all the times he helped me. All the times he protected me when he shouldn’t have.
I feel the love flowing through me with each precious word.
I love you, Langston.
I’ll never forget you, but I’m letting the pain go. Then I drop the letter into the water and watch it float away. And I hope one tiny piece of my heartbreak goes with it.
5
Enzo
Langston isn’t dead.
He’s breathing.
The bullet grazed his arm.
He’s alive.
I exhale all the breath I’ve been holding. But this fucker is about to die for almost killing Langston.
I dive on the man, forgetting I have a gun in my hand that could do just as good of a job. I pummel him to the ground, taking out all of my anger on this one man.
Langston sits, watching.
Finally, I stop. I aim the gun at the attacker’s head.
“Where is Felix?” I ask.
The man shakes.
“Answer me, and I’ll make your death quick. Keep the truth from me, and I’ll torture you slowly.”
The man glares at me. “Los Angeles. He’s in Los Angeles.”
I squeeze the trigger and watch him slump into the ground.
I don’t know if the man was lying or telling the truth, but it’s the only lead I have to go on. So that’s where I’ll start.
Langston is still sitting, motionless. And I realize he can’t do this. He can’t
chase Felix and my need for revenge all over the globe. He needs help, more than I can give him.
I need to get him help. But first, I need to destroy what is left of Felix’s home.
“Come on,” I grab Langston’s hand, lifting him from the ground. He follows me silently.
I walk to the house and see where the charge wasn’t connected to the explosives. I fix the mistake and then Langston and I head back to the car we rented and left on the edge of the property.
We turn around just before reaching the car, and I hold the button out to Langston, who presses it wordlessly.
The boom is enough to jolt us both back into reality. The building begins crumbling immediately, taking with it so many memories that will haunt me the rest of my days. I just hope this is the first step to healing.
I get Langston into the car, and we drive off, both of us staring into the rearview mirror watching the buildings crumble brick by brick.
I speed up when all we can see is the smoke floating high above the trees and buildings of the nearby town. The authorities will arrive soon, and I don’t want to be near the wreckage when they arrive. Even though dealing with them would be no more than a little inconvenience.
I get us back to the yacht, and we leave Italy moments later. Langston still hasn’t spoken to me, not one single word.
I know what I have to do next, but I just got him back, and I’m not ready to lose him again so soon. So I grip the ship's helm harder and stand, looking out at the endless ocean, hoping that in the time it takes me to get this yacht back to the states Langston will have made a miraculous recovery. Enough to be confident when we attack Felix, I won’t have to worry about Langston dropping dead for real this time.
“It’s okay,” Langston says, while leaning against the doorframe.
I know what he means. It’s okay I have to leave him on his own to heal. It’s okay I’m abandoning him when he needs me the most. It’s okay I need to go kill Felix instead of taking care of him.
But none of it feels okay. He is the only person left in the world I love. The only person I give a shit if they live or die.
And it breaks me that I have to leave him.
“Maybe—” I start.
“No.”
I huff. “You didn’t even let me tell you my plan.” I don’t have a good plan. Just that I could stay with him, go to a new city, get him settled, get him into therapy. Make sure he’s healed, then we could attack Felix together.
“I don’t need to hear your plan. You know it isn’t a good plan anyway,” he cracks a tiny smile at my expense.
“I have a great plan.”
He shakes his head. “But it isn’t the right plan. You need to kill Felix, now. It can’t wait. Every day you wait is a day he corrupts more of our men. He gains more power. More money. More technology.”
“It doesn’t matter how long I wait. He took everything I love. There is nothing left he can take from me. Only you.” Tears catch in the corner of my eye.
And I can see Langston’s eyes watering. “Felix can’t touch a dead man. He doesn’t know I’m alive, so he can’t come after me.”
“I don’t want to abandon you.”
“You aren’t. You are protecting me. You are avenging Kai and Liesel. You are protecting the motherfucking world.”
I laugh. “I think that’s a little dramatic. I don’t think I’m protecting the whole world.”
He shrugs with a cocky grin I haven’t seen since he returned from the dead. “Maybe not the entire world, just our little part of it.”
I nod. Because I can’t speak. Damn these tears and getting choked up all the time.
“What do you want to do? Where are you going to go?” I ask finally, after clearing my throat a dozen times and wiping my tears on the back of my hand.
“I shouldn’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because then I’ll be safe to heal. Then you won’t have to worry about me. You won’t put your own life at risk to protect me. Felix can’t torture you to get information about where I am because you don’t know.”
He’s right, but I hate it.
“How will I find you when this is all over?”
He grins and raises his eyebrows. “I have faith you will be able to find me.”
He’s right. I have no problem tracking down someone who doesn’t want to be found. It’s one of my favorite activities, hunting down the hidden. I can find Langston, wherever he goes.
“Fine, don’t tell me. Just promise me you will go see a therapist and get some help wherever you end up.”
He nods.
Good enough.
“I think you should go to Hawaii, maybe Jamaica…no, Australia. That seems like your kind of place. Far away, warm. Filled with plenty of women in bikinis. You could learn to surf and spend your day teaching kids how to surf.”
Langston just chuckles. “I don’t have the patience for kids.”
I laugh. “Maybe not.”
I resist the urge to remind him if he truly wants to be lost, he needs to change his name. Stop using his bank account, credit cards, everything. He needs to exist only in the shadows. But I don’t say anything, because he already knows all of that. We’ve grown up together. The three of us—Langston, Zeke, and I. We taught each other everything we know.
“Thanks for being the best brother I could have asked for,” I say.
He pulls me into a hug. “Don’t kid, we both know Zeke was the better brother.”
I nod as we both start crying again. Zeke should be here. He should have survived. Instead, he’s gone. And we are all that is left.
“Go kick your real brother’s ass.”
“Half-brother. And Felix, Milo, and Pietro may all be related to me by blood, but you and Zeke are my true brothers.”
“I know.”
Langston reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small item. He holds it in the palm of his hand.
“What’s that?”
“You don’t recognize it? I went to a lot of trouble to get it back.”
I stare at the soot-covered item. It looks black more than silver, even though it’s clear Langston tried to polish it at one point. Without a professional cleaning, it’s black—which seems fitting.
I take the ring out of his hand. My mother’s ring. The ring I gave Kai when I fake married her.
“Where did you get this?” I ask.
“Felix.”
I’m speechless. Staring down at the soot-covered ring, I have so many feelings. This ring should still be on Kai’s finger. I should have proposed for real. I should have married her.
Instead, it’s just one more reminder of what I lost—one more momento to carry with me when I kill Felix. I take off the scrunchie I'm wearing and attach the ring to it.
It has part of Zeke, Kai, and now Langston. Pieces of all us now.
“Thank you.”
“It’s my fault Felix came back. I trusted him when I shouldn’t have. Kill the bastard and fix my mistake.”
It wasn’t his mistake, but I know without therapy and time to heal, Langston won’t feel differently. So I don’t argue with him. I put the scrunchie back on my wrist.
“I will.”
6
Kai
Liesel is a bitch.
Delete, delete, delete…
Liesel is a whore.
No! Scratch out.
Why is it so hard for me to write a nice note about Liesel? She helped me—kept my secret. She was kind to me when she didn’t have to be. But somehow every time I try to write a goodbye to her, it includes something mean.
Liesel loved Enzo—even with her dying breath. She would have tried to steal him back from me. I know that. And I think a part of me resents her for keeping Enzo from me for even a second. We had such a short time together. And a tiny reason Enzo and I had less time together was because of Liesel.
I hate her.
But the tears fall down from my eyes onto the page, and it's obvious I’
m telling myself a lie.
I love her.
She was my only female friend. The only one who understood why I wanted to hide this pregnancy—the only one.
And as much as I didn’t get my happily ever after, she didn’t either. And that kills me. She deserved to live a long, happy life. She deserved to have time to decide if she wanted to find her child she gave up to protect. She deserved more time, and now she’s gone.
I drop my pen. I can’t write anymore. These notes were a stupid idea. I can’t let go of people I love. I can’t let go of the pain. I can’t let go of any of it.
I rip off the note I started writing for Liesel and let the pieces fall into the river. Then I rip another piece from the notebook and do the same with that one.
This actually feels good. So I rip another and another as more tears fall, anger spreads, and pain consumes me.
“You know that’s littering,” Beckett says.
I keep ripping the last page of the notebook. “So fine me. But the world owes me. I think I deserve a moment to litter if it makes me feel better.”
“I’m not judging,” Beckett says, leaning over the railing of the bridge next to me.
I don’t want him to see me cry. I don’t know how much he knows about my past. I don’t know what my father has told him. But I still have my suspicions about him. I don’t think he’s just a fisherman, even though he looks the part. He’s wearing cargo pants and a flannel shirt. And he does smell like fish.
“You smell,” I say, wiping the tears from my eyes. He probably thinks I’m crying because of pregnancy hormones.
“We live in Alaska; everyone smells like fish.”
I sigh.
“Want to tell me what the ripping up the tiny pieces of paper was about?”
“Nope.”
He nods. “Want to go get a coffee with me?”
“I can’t drink caffeine; it could hurt the baby.”
“Oh.” He stares at my huge stomach. I’m only a little over half-way through the pregnancy, but I can’t imagine my stomach growing any more than it already has. “Well, not too much longer, and then you’ll be able to have caffeine again once the baby is born.”
