“If I find out you’re lying to me, I will take you apart piece by piece and make sure you understand exactly why honesty matters to me.” I keep my voice calm, conversational even, as the threat rolls off my tongue. "And when you're begging me to end it, when you're praying for death, I'll keep you alive just long enough to see me burn everything you've ever loved to ash."
I end the call and toss my phone onto the seat beside me.
Dmitri shifts in the passenger seat, a smirk playing at his lips. "Subtle as always."
"Subtlety is overrated. Especially when that shipment was due two weeks ago."
“I don’t imagine you’ll have any more delays after that.”
“That supplier isn’t stupid enough to let me down again.”
“You know, for someone who just got married, you’re very tense,” he says.
“Because someone is trying to kill my wife.”
My wife.
I’ve been married for eighteen hours. But I haven’t seen Holly since she walked off after the ceremony last night because I had to fly out early this morning for a meeting in Seattle.
Now we're heading back to the lodge from the airport, and I am expecting fireworks when I arrive.
I watch the landscape roll past the car. The snow has stopped for now, leaving the world crystalline and perfect under the afternoon sun. Mountains rise on either side of us, their peaks disappearing into clouds that promise more snow to come.
We’re half an hour from the lodge when a sign for a Christmas tree farm catches my eye.
"Alexei, pull over."
He doesn't hesitate and guides the SUV off the road and along the driveway leading to the farm. The tires crunch against packed snow as we come to a stop.
Dmitri looks at me like I've lost my mind. "What are we doing here?"
I'm already opening the door, stepping out into the cold. "Wait here."
The tree farm is mostly bare. What's left are scraggly things, half-dead and sad. A man in overalls and a heavy coat emerges from a small shed, eyeing me with the wariness of someone who knows trouble when he sees it.
"Help you?" he asks.
"I need a tree."
He gestures to what remains. "That's all I got left. Two days before Christmas, you know. The good ones went weeks ago."
I scan the pitiful selection and shake my head. These won't do. Not for her.
"Thanks anyway," I say, already turning back to the SUV.
Dmitri's watching me with barely contained amusement as I climb back in. "Strike out?"
"Drive," I tell Alexei.
We continue up the mountain road, and I find myself scanning the forest on either side. Looking for what, I'm not entirely sure, until I see it.
About twenty feet off the road, standing proud among its lesser brothers, is a Douglas fir. Full branches. Symmetrical.Perfect.
"Stop the car."
Alexei pulls over again, and this time both he and Dmitri follow me out. The three of us stand at the edge of the road, looking at my prize.
"Nikolai," Dmitri starts, but I'm already walking to the trunk.
