by Ella Miles
Of course, it just makes mister smiley grin. “I had a good time too, Kai.”
He called me, Kai, not Katherine, even though my uncle called me Katherine the entire time we were watching the game. My suspicions are growing about this guy.
“Goodbye, Beckett,” I say.
“Goodbye, Kai.”
Beckett leaves. I walk to the door and look into the peephole to make sure he leaves.
And then I turn my anger on my uncle.
“What the hell was that?” I yell.
My uncle narrows his eyes. “You are going to have to be more specific with what you are angry with me about. Since you are angry with me about everything lately.”
“Beckett. Why did you invite him over?”
“Because you had been asleep for three days, and he’s my friend, and I knew he wanted to watch the game, so I invited him over. It’s my house, and I wasn’t sure if you were going to leave your bedroom or not.”
I glare. “Why did you invite him over? Does her work for the Black organization?”
“What? Of course not.”
I cross my arms. “Then why did you invite him over? Was that a setup? A date?”
My uncle doesn’t answer, which means I’m right.
I throw my head back and my arms ups. “I give up. I shouldn’t have come back here. I should have gone somewhere by myself. You are unbelievable. Trying to set me up while I'm pregnant with another man’s baby.”
I start storming off to my bedroom, intent on packing. But my uncle steps in the way.
“What are you doing? Get out of my way,” I huff.
He shakes his head. “You deserve a life, Kai. A life where you get to be happy. I didn’t set you up on that date because I thought Beckett was the right man for you or that you are anywhere near ready to move on. I’m just trying to show you there is a life outside these walls. That even though you are running, and can never be with the man you want, you can be with a man again. You can find a man who will make you happy, a man who can make you laugh, a man you call fall in love with.”
“I can’t fall in love. Not when I’m in love with Enzo. My heart belongs to him. I don’t want it back.”
My uncle stiffens. “Maybe—maybe you can only form a friendship. Maybe it will be love but not as intense as what you have with Enzo. But you need to move on. You need to be happy. You need to start planning for the future.”
“I can’t,” I sob.
My uncle wraps me in his arms, pulling me to him. I’m too tired to protest or stop him. And I need the hug.
“You can. You are the strongest person I know. And maybe that’s my fault, but I think you would have turned out this way despite my stupid intervention. You have to live. You have to fight. You have to find something worth living for. Otherwise, you will die in this house. I can’t bring you out of the fog, my daughter; you have to do that on your own.”
Daughter.
More tears.
My uncle loves me. And he still sees me as his daughter. No matter how badly he messed up before.
“Are you going to live or die? Because I can’t stand by and watch my daughter dissolve into nothing. I know Enzo is the love of your life. You deserve a lifetime of happiness with him. But you made your decision. You chose to save all three of you: Enzo, the baby, and yourself. You made the strong choice, but you have to keep making the strong choice every single day.
“Your love story is epic and unstoppable. Nothing will diminish your love for Enzo. But you have to find a way to live with the hurt. Find someone else you can love, even if that love isn’t as strong.”
I nod into my father’s chest—father. He may have fucked up a lot, but as he holds me, I know he loves me. I know he still sees himself as my father. I don’t forgive him for everything he’s done. But I do trust him now.
And then I feel it.
The fluttering in my stomach. Like tiny little butterflies.
I pull back and grip my stomach.
“Kai, what’s wrong?”
The fluttering gets harder, more like light thumps.
I grin as I bite my bottom lip. Then I grab my father’s hand and place it over my stomach.
And then our tears are falling hard. Beautiful, crocodile tears that run down our cheeks and over our large grins.
“The baby is kicking,” I say, with a light laugh.
“It’s incredible,” my father says.
I nod and close my eyes as I hold my father’s hand over my stomach, and the fluttering continues. My father saved the baby. And my baby reminded me I do have something to live for—or rather, someone.
Until this moment, the baby didn’t feel real. And I had my doubts about it being Enzo’s. But now, I know as the warmth spreads all over my body from the inside out. The same warm feeling I get when Enzo touches me. This baby is his. The warmth is his. And I don’t need to replace the love I feel for Enzo with something new. I just need to open my heart, widen my love to include our baby as well. And right now, I’ve never felt a greater love than that of the baby I created with the love of my life.
3
Enzo
“Langston?” I ask.
The man on top of me freezes as I say his name.
My heart pounds. I’ve imagined so many fucking times a person I love coming back to life. That I got it wrong. That they weren’t dead, just gone—hiding, waiting until the threat was gone to reappear. I’ve dreamed of this moment so many times. But every time I did, I would wake up. And I would realize the dream wasn’t real.
This feels real.
I feel the rain dripping down on top of us. The wind knocking through our bodies. His weight on top of me.
But that doesn’t mean anything. All of my dreams before were vivid. All of them I thought were real.
This is just a dream, I tell myself. Don’t get your hopes up. The devastation that will come when you wake up will be all too much.
The man doesn’t answer.
Maybe I was wrong? Maybe I’m imagining things because I hoped so much for any person I cared about to come back? I’m putting other people’s faces on my enemies.
No.
I know in my heart the man on top of me is Langston.
I just don’t know yet if this is a dream or reality.
“Langston,” I say more affirmatively.
I loosen my grip on his neck, trying to show I don’t want to hurt him.
The man on top of me shows me no such mercy. He jabs his elbow hard into my stomach and then slices a knife across my neck before I can react.
The cut isn’t deep, just enough to spill blood. But it still hurts like a motherfucker.
Langston turns, looking me in the eyes.
I grin. He’s here. He’s alive. And I know from the intensity of the cut that this is real. This isn’t a dream.
“Langston,” I breathe, as tears stream. I never thought I’d see him again. And the emotions I feel overwhelm me. “You’re alive.”
“And you aren’t real,” Langston says.
He begins to jab the knife into my neck again, but this time I block him, even through my tears.
“Langston, it’s me, Enzo.”
He shakes his head. “Enzo is dead.”
I kick Langston off of me, and hold my hands out cautiously, like I’m trying to approach a lion about to attack me. Langston still grips the knife in his hand. I don’t doubt he has a gun he will pull on me soon.
I don’t want to shoot or stab him. I just need to knock him out of whatever nightmare he is going through.
I look him over for the first time as the rain softens around us. He’s wearing jeans heavily stained black and red. His black shirt has more holes in it than not. He hasn’t shaved in weeks. His hair is ragged and growing around his ears. But none of that is what worries me—it’s the look in his eyes.
Langston has given up. He thinks everyone he loves is dead—I know the feeling. He looks like complete devastation and death. There is no light behin
d his eyes. No reason to live. Not even for revenge. He’s just going through the motions. He’s not really here.
He’s with Liesel, and Kai, and Zeke. His heart is gone. He thinks I’m a figment of his imagination. His dreams playing tricks on him again—I can’t really be here.
“This isn’t a dream, Langston. This is real,” I shout over the howling wind and rain never ceasing. The ship continues to burn around us, and soon will fall to the depths of the ocean.
“Liar. You’re dead,” Langston says, his voice relaxed and monotone.
I hold my hands up. “Would your enemies hold their hands up like this?”
“You aren’t my enemy. You’re my nightmare,” Langston says.
“Ask me. Ask me something only I would know. Something that would make you feel this is real and not a dream,” I say.
He considers for a moment. “In high school, you said Jessica Willis kissed you, not the other way around. Was it true?”
“No, I kissed her. I knew you liked her, and I betrayed you. I’m sorry.”
Langston shakes his head.
I slowly put my hands down, hoping this is over. “You believe I’m real?”
He laughs. “No, the real Enzo would never admit to betraying me like that.”
Fuck.
I see him reach for his gun at the same time I reach for my knife. I throw my knife before Langston has a chance to fire. The knife sticks into Langston’s thigh.
He stares down at the wound, finally feeling more pain than a dream produces.
“This is real,” I say, walking toward him.
He grabs the knife, pulls it out, and stares at the blood. “Real.” Slowly, his eyes meet mine.
And then we embrace in a desperate hug.
“You’re alive,” Langston sobs into my shoulder.
“You’re alive,” I repeat, not believing my own words.
“How? You were dead,” Langston says.
“I want to ask you the same question. Numerous people reported you dead. I saw the evidence. The security footage, there was no way you could have survived,” I say.
He nods. “I shouldn’t have.”
“How did you?”
He shrugs. “Luck, determination. I’m not sure. I remember crawling away from the explosion. I ended up on the beach. And when I went back, everyone was gone or dead.”
Langston’s alive. Could others be alive?
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
My heart speeds up at that, though. Could Liesel be alive? Could Kai? The baby?
“No,” Langston says sternly.
“What?” I didn’t ask him a question, so I don’t know what he’s answering.
“No, they aren’t alive. Don’t go there. Don’t torture yourself.”
“But—”
“No, I saw Liesel die. I saw Kai die. The baby—they are all gone. Don’t torture yourself thinking they could be alive. They aren’t.”
He saw them die. They are really dead.
I step away, needing a moment.
“Don’t do this to yourself. You seem in a healthier place than I am, don’t let this change anything,” Langston says.
“I’m in the healthier place? Really?”
But when I turn and look at Langston again, I know it’s the truth. At least I’ve taken a shower and changed my clothes. I’ve eaten the occasional meal. I have a reason for existing—revenge.
Langston doesn’t even seem to care about revenge. I don’t think he’s changed his clothes from that night. He’s lost weight, so I doubt he’s eaten more than the bare necessity to survive. His eyes are bloodshot, and his skin pale. Without intervention, I don’t know how much longer he would survive.
But I see in him what only a person that has experienced a great love would see. Langston is heartbroken. Not because he thought he lost me or Kai even. But because he lost Liesel. He lost the love of his life, but unlike me, he never told her he loved her. He didn’t kiss her lips. He didn’t sink into her depths. He loved without ever saying it out loud, and now, it’s too late.
I can’t imagine the pain I would feel right now if I hadn’t told Kai I loved her. If I hadn’t gotten the limited time we had together.
It still should have been me instead. I should have been the one to die. But I know when she died, Kai knew what love felt like, and that was the greatest gift I could give her.
Langston is heartbroken in a way you can never heal from. Never come to terms with. All the therapy in the world won’t fix him. He will never recover from this. He may be alive, but my friend is gone. What is left is a shell of the man he once was.
“Join me,” I hold my hand out to him.
He stares at it and then takes my hand, gripping it tightly. “Absolutely. We going to kill Felix for this?”
I nod. “Something like that.”
“You good?” I ask Langston.
He nods. He hasn’t spoken much in the three days we’ve been reunited. He’s mostly in his own head. I basically had to shovel food into his mouth and throw him into a shower to get him fed and clean.
He’s broken.
I’m broken.
And that makes us the most dangerous men alive. Because both of us will do whatever it takes to kill Felix. To kill everyone involved in Kai and Liesel’s deaths.
“Do you understand the plan?” I ask.
He nods.
We stare at Milo and Felix’s mansion in Italy. I used to think of it as only Milo’s, but I realize now Felix was playing me the whole time pretending to be any other employee at Milo’s organization, when in reality he had the same level of power as Milo.
“Good. They burned our club down. They burned our house down. Let’s burn theirs,” I say.
Langston’s body tightens, but he doesn’t react to my words.
I’m sure Felix isn’t here. There aren’t enough men patrolling trying to protect him. I don’t care that Felix isn’t here. I want him to suffer. I want him to watch his home go up in flames like I had to. And I want to torture one of his men into giving me information about where Felix is.
Even though Felix doesn’t have a lot of his men here, we are greatly outnumbered.
There are two of us.
Probably more than a dozen of them.
It’s not my style to arm explosives and blow up my enemy without giving them a chance to hit me back. But after what Felix did, I’m more than happy to repay him the favor. He isn’t the only one in this family who knows how to use explosives. And unlike him, I don’t need the fanciest equipment or other people to do my dirty work.
I glance at Langston one last time. There was a time I would trust him with my life.
Do I trust him now? Is he stable enough to handle this?
Yes.
He may be heartbroken, but we’ve fought so many battles side by side I know what he’s capable of. I know he fights almost automatically. He won’t let his feelings cloud his judgment. He won’t let his pain affect anything.
I have no doubts.
I give Langston the signal to brace himself, and then I press the button that will spark the explosion.
Nothing happens.
I press it again.
Nothing.
I look at Langston whose eyes have clouded over. He isn’t here.
Fuck.
He was supposed to hook up the last explosives. He failed. He’s not ready for this.
We should retreat.
But it’s too late.
We’ve been spotted.
It’s fight or die. And I’m not letting Langston die—not again. Even if he’d rather die to deal with his pain.
“Cover me,” I say, hoping he can kill people from the bunker and not risk his own life, because if he hesitates for a second, he could die. And I won’t survive watching him die.
I jump out of the bunker we are hiding in and start firing my weapon. I run away from Langston, trying to draw the enemy away from him.
It work
s.
Felix’s men start chasing me.
I grin.
I’d rather take them down one by one than watch them die in an explosion anyway. But still, I want the house crumbling. I want the house burning. I want nothing left for Felix to return to.
One.
Two.
Three.
Three shots, three men down.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Three more down.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
All dead.
I counted twelve. Two are still chasing me, which means…
I turn back and see a man sneaking up on Langston from behind.
No!
I fire at the last two chasing me, confident that I got them and not giving them a second chance as I charge toward Langston. I yell for him to look behind him. To catch sight of what is happening, but it’s all moving too fast.
I hear the shot.
I see Langston being hit.
And it’s like watching him die all over again.
He should have stayed dead; I will never survive this pain.
4
Kai
“And how does that make you feel?” my therapist asks.
My father suggested I see a therapist. Not to heal my relationship with him. I don’t think our relationship is ever going to be fully salvageable, but because he thinks it will help me heal, move on. Deal with my new life.
I think my father is crazy. And if my therapist asks me one more time how I feel I’m going to kill him.
Maybe I should have gone to a female therapist? Maybe a woman would understand my situation better? But somehow I don’t think so. I don’t think a therapist has gone to enough years of training to understand the situation I’ve been through.
“Katherine, how does it make you feel?” Evan asks again.
Ugh, and don’t get me started on him calling me Katherine. It was my father’s idea. I know he’s right. Kai is dead. I need to accept it. I need to go by an alias in case anyone comes looking for me. But I’ve always hated the name Katherine. Maybe I should choose another name, a name I actually like.
