by Cora Kenborn
Luciano’s face flushes bright red, and he backhands the ashtray, sending it crashing to the floor. Rising out of his chair, he looms across his desk, fire in his eyes. “Because you’re family, Dominic. You saved that girl. She meant something to you. I could see it in your eyes.”
“But Rosten—”
“I told you not to go after him,” he roars, pounding his fists against the wood. “I warned you, and you wouldn’t listen!”
“You could’ve told me how dangerous he really was.”
He lets out a dry laugh. “You were out for blood already, Dominic. If I told you he ordered the hit on that girl and her family, you wouldn’t have just tried to ruin him. You would’ve tried to kill him.”
He’s right.
“What about afterward? The lawsuit. I came to you.” Resentment wells inside me. “I begged you for help, and you turned your back on me. You told me I was dead to you.”
“What’s more important to you, boy? That business or your life? I could’ve helped you build another business, but once there’s a bullet in your brain, that’s it. If I’d bailed you out, you don’t think that asshole would’ve put two and two together eventually? He didn’t know you were there that night, but if I started throwing my weight behind you and against him, you better be damn sure he’d have figured it out. Use your brain,” he shouts, jabbing his finger against his temple. “If Marco didn’t kill us, someone else would’ve.”
“You knew she was the real Alexandra Romanov. You lied to me.”
“I told you to send her back to Chula Vista, and you wouldn’t listen. I told you she’d get inside your head and bring you to your knees, and you still didn’t listen. I even told you once the real Alexandra Romanov came forward, we were both fucked, and you still didn’t fucking listen. So, did I lie, Dominic? Or did you just not want to see the truth?”
I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. Why it didn’t cross my mind. Luciano buys everyone. Unions. Politicians. Law Enforcement.
Pharmaceutical companies.
“Son of a bitch, it was you. You were the one who had the test switched to BioLink.”
“I knew what the results would be.”
“But why?”
“Eventually you’d both need proof. Why not already have it?”
“Did you have my contact fired, too? Did you set the reveal in motion on purpose?” Because I swear, if he did, I might empty my gun right now.
“No. That was dumb luck. As your girl would say, ‘fate always finds a way’.”
I’ve said before that tension smells like a strained rubber band being stretched to its breaking point. After fifteen years of strain, it finally snaps with one final unanswered question hanging in the air.
“When you gave Joey and me the job, you told me it was over a debt. It wasn’t, was it?”
Luciano’s eyes cloud as he lowers himself back into his chair and pulls out a third cigar. “Why don’t you go pay your friend Rubio a visit? Ask him to dig up files on one of his dad’s old buddies. Name’s Larry Kramer.” Clipping off the end of the cigar, he glances up at me. “Sometimes the dirtiest layers are hidden by the most honorable shields.”
I don’t wait. With my gun by my side, I turn my back on him and walk away.
“Dominic?” I pause in the doorway, but don’t turn around. “Whatever happened in the past is the past. You love that girl. Whether you’ll admit it or not, in some way, you’ve been looking for her for fifteen years. Most people don’t get a second chance to make things right. Don’t fuck it up.”
I can’t see his face, but I can feel his words. There’s loss there. Emotion. Pain. Almost as if he’s speaking from a dark place he’s locked away.
“Alexandra’s messes are your responsibility now,” he adds, the spicy scent of cigar smoke hitting my nose as I walk away. “My job is done.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Dominic
A plain black cup of coffee sits untouched in front of me as I lean back, watching people rush back and forth. There are all types in this town. You get the good with the bad, the beautiful with the ugly, and the guilty with the innocent. Sometimes they get so good at hiding who they really are, it’s impossible to tell them apart.
So, who do you trust?
There’s no clear-cut answer. Sometimes you just have to take a blind leap of faith and hope it doesn’t land you at the bottom of a cliff.
The scrape of a chair against rough sidewalk draws my attention away from the street and toward Detective Rubio as he slumps into the seat across from me. “I got your message.” The conflict skirting around his face tells me he’s intrigued but cautious. “So someone gave you a tip for me, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Why cooperate with me now?”
“Because I have nothing left to lose.”
He scratches his chin. “Okay, let’s hear it. What do you have that supposedly is going to blow the Romanov case wide open?”
I take a running start and jump. “I need you to find anything you can on Larry Kramer.”
His eyes widen. “My dad’s old partner? The man’s dead. What the hell does he have to do with anything?”
We can sit here and dick around about this all day, but neither of us have the time for it. I’ve already leaped, and now he needs to, or I’m fucked. “It’s asking a lot, but just trust me on this. What you’re looking for isn’t going to be easily accessible. They’re buried files. Misfiled, backlogged. Shit, I don’t know the names for what you guys do.” I think of Luciano’s advice and add, “Just look below the surface. Meet me back here when you find something.”
“You might want to sit down for this.”
Four hours later, I’m at the same table, watching what feels like the same people when Rubio sits down in the same seat in front of me and slams a dark blue folder down. Whatever’s in there isn’t good. His eyes are wide and barely blinking, and he keeps sawing his jaw back and forth.
“Did you find something?”
“I found a lot of somethings.” Flipping open the folder, he spreads out papers like a kid dumping out Halloween candy. “Seems that your buddy Greg Rosten had some serious ties to Nicholas and Katerina Romanov, and I don’t mean contractually.”
I scan the papers, one catching my eye immediately. The more I read, the harder I clench my fists. “Are these molestation charges?”
Rubio nods, the sawing getting louder. “Looks like you were right to send out that blast. Rosten’s a pedophile. One that Katerina pimped Alexandra out to in exchange for better roles.”
I fight back waves of nausea as his words sink in. I think about the bruises I saw on little Alexandra’s hands as she counted, tucked away in that corner. I think of Rosten’s insistence that I force Angel to sign with Silverline. I think of Brent’s voice telling me he saw Rosten touching her. I think of Angel’s insistence that he’d drugged and raped her.
Then my blood goes so cold I can’t breathe.
Because I think about eight-year-old Alexandra Romanov turning my gun on her mother and pulling the trigger.
“McCallum? You okay?”
Swallowing the bile crawling up my throat, I glance down at the paper crushed in my fist. “This is dated December 22nd.”
“Turns out a couple nights before they were murdered, Nicholas found out what was going on and planned to expose him.” Prying the paper out of my hand, he smooths it out and points to the date again. “Went to the police and filed a report.”
He doesn’t have to tell me the rest. I know how this story ends. “But it was never processed. Because Kramer was on Rosten’s payroll.”
“Sometimes I hate this job,” he says, ending two generations of detective work.
And I finally speak the words that have haunted me for most of my adult life. “Rosten staged a hit on the whole family, making it look like a home invasion, to make sure none of them ever talked.”
Rubio blinks, his jaw stilling. “A tip huh?”
“Yep. A
random tip.”
“There’s more to this story, isn’t there McCallum?”
I don’t say anything.
He chuckles on a low exhale. “Am I ever going to hear it?”
“Maybe someday.” And maybe he will. Maybe eventually the story of how Alexandra Romanov and I came to be will come out. But it won’t be from me. I stand, throwing a twenty on the table for another untouched cup of coffee. “You ever going to tell me what my aunt told you?”
“Maybe someday.”
This time, I chuckle. “Good luck, detective.”
As I turn to walk away, leaving Detective Javier Rubio to clean up the mess I’ve made, I hear him mutter under his breath, “Well, I guess my job is done.”
I stop mid-stride and twist back around. “What did you say?”
His brows knit. “I said my job is done.”
“Alexandra’s messes are your responsibility now. My job is done.”
Luciano’s words hurl back and grab me around the throat.
Her messes.
My job is done.
I didn’t think I could be blindsided any more in one day, but I was wrong.
He covered for her.
I love you aren’t words I ever thought I’d know. They were a foreign language spoken by people living in a culture I never understood. I knew possession. I knew want.
Now I know all three, and being a selfish man, I won’t let them go.
Alexandra Romanov or Angel Smith, I don’t care what she calls herself. They both make up the woman who owns my soul. I’ll never be able to reconcile this fierce obsession I have with her, but I also know I can’t fight it. She’s mine, and I’ll ruin anyone who tries to take her from me.
Even if it’s Alexandra Romanov herself.
So, while Hilda and Angel are out putting flowers on the memorial bench she insisted on putting in the far corner of the estate, I park by the gate and walk onto the grounds. I climb up the spiral staircase in the back, ignoring the memories trying to force their way in.
I slide my key in the lock and open the door, keeping my focus as I head to the east wing.
I tear it apart piece by piece, and nothing is standing by the time I’m done.
Even me.
I’m in the bedroom we share when I hear her footsteps. They’re light, unlike the heavy shuffle I’ve heard since everything went to hell.
This means Angel is in control.
“Dominic!” I stand from my seat on the edge of the mattress as she runs toward me and throws herself into my arms. She feels so fucking thin. The past few months have taken their toll on her. She tries to cover it up by wearing things like the long blue dress she has on, but I’ve always seen past the surface.
Even when I tried not to.
“I was talking to your mom, and…” I can feel her tense in my arms as she slowly pulls away. I fight the instinct that tells me if I hold tight enough, if I protect her enough, if I love her enough, nothing can hurt her.
I promised her I’d never lie to her again. As much as it drives a knife through my heart, I release her, watching that little vertical line sink between her eyebrows.
“Your eyes look funny,” she says, a catch in her soft voice. “Why do your eyes look funny?” She steps back again, her gaze darting around the room. “What’s happening?”
If only I could keep my angel in a cage. If only I could keep her from ever remembering what she did…everything she did.
But I can’t. Eventually, Alexandra will open the door and tell her.
“Rook, what did you do to Greg Rosten?”
She swallows hard, as if her breath is trapped in her throat. “I didn’t do anything. He did something to me, remember? He raped me.”
I wish she could see how much I believe her. How much I want to turn back time and put my hands around that man’s throat and feel the life slowly leave his body. My Angel’s truth is real, up until the very end where it dwindles away like mist. “I believe he tried. And I believe he would’ve…if you hadn’t stopped him.”
Her hands clutch her chest. “What? Are you crazy?” She repeats the words over and over until it happens. Until she stills, and the frantic look in her eyes sharpens. “What are you saying?”
That voice. That tone. I close my eyes.
Hello, Alexandra.
“Rosten is missing.”
She cocks her chin. “So?”
There’s no turning back now. Love can’t exist on a bed of lies, and angels can’t fly with broken wings. “I talked to Luciano today.” I meet her cutting gaze. “The guard who claims you weren’t there was paid to erase the footage and lie.” I saw it myself.
She blinks, and her clenched fists release as if she’s fighting to hold on to her own skin. When she looks back at me, there’s fear in her eyes. “What? By who?” She presses the back of her hand against her mouth. “Why?”
My Angel.
“Luciano. To protect you.”
“You’re not making any sense.” She shakes her head back and forth.
I can’t drag this out anymore. Angel is with me, and she’s breaking. I have to do this before the scales tip and Alexandra beats me to it.
My arms ache from keeping them locked by my side, but I stay firm, holding my voice steady. “What happened to the clothes you wore the night you went to Silverline?”
“You know what happened. The hospital took my red dress to swab for DNA.” A flicker of recognition dances in her eyes. It’s only there for a second then goes out, but it’s enough to give me the strength to keep going.
“No!” I step closer and back her into the wall. “Not the clothes you wore to the hospital, Angel. The clothes you wore to the studio. I told you, the guard was paid to erase the footage. I didn’t say there weren’t copies. So, I’ll ask again. Where are the jeans and shirt you wore to Silverline?”
I might as well have slapped her. Swinging her chin to the side, she winces and whispers through a sob, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Fuck this.
Jerking open the nightstand drawer, I pull out a pair of jeans and a splotchy shirt. Both covered in stains so thick the fabric is barely recognizable.
Pennies.
Blood.
“These clothes!” I shove them in her face. “The ones stained with blood. You want to know where I found them?” She shakes her head, clawing the wall behind her, hysterically sobbing now. “In the east wing bedroom. Not only hidden under the mattress but stuffed inside it.”
“No!”
“Do you know how they got in there?”
“No!”
Keeping the bloody clothes held up with one hand, I reach back into the nightstand with the other and wrap my hand around the silver handle. “With this,” I roar, pulling out a blood-stained, ten-inch letter opener. Holding it against her cheek, I force her to look at it, my heart ripping out of my chest with every scream. “I promised I’d never lie to you again, Angel, but I need you to meet me halfway. Did you kill Rosten with this?”
“No! No! No!” Her knees buckle.
Dropping the clothes, I grab her around the waist, because I’m about to push both of us off the ledge. Turning the letter opener sideways, I hold it in front of her face. “Read what’s engraved on it!”
For a precious few seconds, there’s silence as Angel scans the words.
Then she lets out a blood-curdling scream before slipping through my hands.
Chapter Fifty
Angel
Gregory Rosten.
Even with my eyes closed and the noises coming from my mouth, those two words are still louder and shine brighter than anything else. They can’t be real, but I’m too scared to open my eyes and look again.
I hear Dominic calling my name, but it sounds so far away—like he’s in a tunnel and I’m in another tunnel and there are too many rocks in between to ever get to him. I try, because I need him. Even as scared as he makes me, I need him to tell me I don’t ever have to count again.
I need him to save me from the pennies. I need to kiss the cross on his hand because he’s the Angel of Death.
I try, but I fail.
And as I fail, I slip into that locked place in my mind. The one where Alexandra waits for me with her hand out and a soft smile.
It’s time.
I stop trying to break down the rocks and walk deeper into the tunnel.
My own sickness coats my cheek as I tighten my grip on the desk. Yet it’s not the desk. It’s cold and thin. It fits in my hand and it moves. Yes. It moves. No more bad man. No more pain.
“Hold still, you little bitch!”
“Not yours!” I scream, my voice breaking. “Not yours! His! I’m his! You can’t have it!” With every word, I fight. With every word, I battle to keep my promise. “I’m his! Not yours! His! His! His!” My arm hurts, and I can’t breathe. Oh God, I can’t breathe. Why can’t I breathe?
A soft voice whispers in my ear, “It’s over.”
She’s here, so I listen. I stop yelling and stop fighting, but I still can’t breathe.
Slowly, I open my eyes to see Rosten still on top of me, but he’s not hurting me anymore. He’s not saying ugly things to me anymore. He’s not moving anymore.
I can’t breathe because he’s lying on top of me.
“Get off,” I wheeze. “Get off! Get off! Get off!” He doesn’t. I wiggle and squirm and push until there’s enough space for me to crawl out from underneath him.
Why am I so sticky?
Then I remember what he did to me and shame burns my cheeks. Oh no. Tears flood my eyes. I’m not Dominic’s anymore. He took what belonged to Dominic and left his stain.
Heartbroken, I reach down to pull up my jeans when I realize my legs are red. My face flames hotter and the tears fall harder. Then I see my shirt. And my arms. And my hands.
All red.
The voice whispers again, “Run.”
I nod because she’s always right. Reaching for my jeans again, I try to pull them up, but I can’t. There’s something in my hand. I open my palm and stare down at a long, silver letter opener. It’s covered in sticky red, and it smells like pennies.
