"This won't end well, Ilya. And when your little obsession runs away or when you get tired of her, you'll have destroyed everything for nothing."
I hang up before she can say anything else.
The silence is heavy as I toss my phone onto the couch cushions. This is a bigger problem than I’m allowing myself to think about right now, and deep down, I know that’s a symptom of the deeper issue of what this obsession with Mara is doing to me. I should be more worried about what I’ll lose by breaking my engagement. I should be more concerned with the consequences… I should be going back to Boston and pacifying Svetlana, ensuring that she’s happy and making concrete plans for a wedding.
But tomorrow I'll have Mara. Tomorrow I'll make her understand what she is to me, what we are to each other. Tomorrow I'll finally step out of the shadows and show her who has been watching her since the moment I locked eyes with her in Boston.
That feels like it’s worth anything… even burning down alliances I could use, even need, for a woman who doesn’t even know my real name yet.
But tomorrow she will. And everything will change.
13
MARA
Iget to my gallery early the next morning, before eight, despite the chaos of the night before. I couldn’t sleep anyway, after getting that photo, so I figure I might as well make the time count. I need a distraction, too.
I’m supposed to be preparing for next week’s exhibition. The pieces arrived yesterday, still crated, and I need to plan the layout, write the wall text, coordinate with the framers. Instead, I'm at my desk in the back office, my laptop open to the same searches I've been running obsessively for days.
I.S. Boston businessman
I.S. art collector Boston
Ivan Boston
Igor Boston
I’ve gotten nothing. Or rather, too much—hundreds of results, none of them useful. LinkedIn profiles of men with the right initials but wrong faces. Business articles about people I've never heard of. Dead end after dead end. I've been scrolling through photos of Boston's business elite, art collectors, anyone who might fit. I've looked at charity gala photos, gallery openingcoverage, society pages. My eyes are burning from staring at screens, and I'm no closer to finding him than I was a week ago.
The only thing I know for certain about my stalker is that he has the initials I.S., he's wealthy and/or connected enough to make police investigations disappear, and he's violent. He’s unstable.
He’s willing to do unspeakable things to make me his, and that excites me far more than it should.
"Mara?"
I jump, slamming my laptop shut. Claire is standing in the doorway with two coffees and a bright, mischievious expression.
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you." She sets one of the coffees on my desk. "You okay? You look exhausted." She grins, smirking. “Did that sexy guy who looked like Clark Kent keep you up all night?”
Nausea sweeps through me at the memory of the picture; Daniel’s destroyed face. I shake my head.
“It actually… we… he… I sent him home.” I run a hand through my hair. “We kissed, but that’s it.”
“Youkissed!” Claire’s voice goes up several octaves. “Okay, this is great. This is progress. How was it? How washe?”
I force myself to bite back the sharp response I want to give her.He’s in the hospital. Or dead. He looked like he might never see right again, depending on how much damage was done to his eyes. His jaw probably needed to be wired shut.
“It was… fine. Nothing to write home about.” I yawn. “I shouldn’t have been out so late on a work night. And we have this exhibition coming up, so I need to focus on that.”
"Well, the pieces are gorgeous. They're going to sell." Claire turns, heading back toward the gallery floor. "Oh, and Mrs. Valencia is coming in at eleven to look at the Picasso print. I pulled the provenance file for you."
"Thanks."
She pauses at the door. "Mara? If you need to talk about anything... I'm here, okay?"
I force a smile. "I know. Thank you."
When she's gone, I open my laptop again, but I can't focus on the searches anymore. My eyes keep drifting to my phone, to the photo I deleted but can still see perfectly in my mind. Daniel's destroyed face. The message:You're mine.
