“She’s mine,” I whisper.
“Perhaps, but if she is yours, you owe her honesty, not more control.”
Goddamn, it’s hard.
Every instinct in me screams to keep her where I can see her, where Peter can’t touch her—where I can control what happens to her. Peter has ruined so much. No doubt in my mind he’d ruin her, too, blood or not.
“What do you think would happen ifPeterwere to find out?” I say. “He’d use her as a weapon. That’s what a man like him does.”
“All the more reason to tell her first. If Ruth knows, then it’s only a matter of time. You can get the advantage by starting clean, not by hoping you can keep the lie going, not by becoming everything about Peter that you hate.”
That lands. I turn, watching rain streak the window.
Bogdan sighs, softening. Perhaps he feels he went too far. “Listen, I know I’m reaching the point where you tell me to shut the hell up, but it’s clear that you love her. But love can’t live under glass. It suffocates.”
I picture her again, this time from the other night in my office. I think of the way she looked with her head on my chest, sleeping peacefully after our lovemaking. I’d held her for a long while before carrying her to bed, simply enjoying her there, knowing she’s growing our children in her belly.
“If he touches her, I’ll kill him.” The words pour from me without my active consent.
“I know,” Bogdan says. “Let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that.”
I lift my eyes and spot Ruth coming out of the bank.
“There she is,” Bogdan says. “Keep following her?”
“Yes.”
The G Wagon pulls up to the curb. The driver steps out once again, Ruth flowing gracefully into the car.
We’re downtown, skyscrapers vanishing into the gray, late-winter fog above. The precipitation is somewhere between rain and snow, but nothing sticks because it’s not cold enough. I find myself imagining summer, Gabriella’s belly huge with our twins, then fall, when it’s time for the little ones to arrive.
But whether or not that future comes to pass depends on me. I have to keep her alive. It’s the only thing that matters.
Bogdan expertly follows the G Wagon through downtown, staying far back enough so as not to be noticed, close enough to never lose sight. After ten or so minutes, her car pulls up to the half-circle parkway in front of one of the towers.
The driver repeats the process, letting her out and driving off. This time, however, a pair of men are there to greether at the tall front doors of the building. They form up at her sides, and together the group goes in.
Bogdan reaches forward and types something into his phone, making a satisfied noise a few moments later. “This is?—”
“Valmont Equity Partners,” I say. “One of Peter’s shells. Offshore funding, private security.”
Bogdan cranes his neck to look at the tower again, the logo glinting twenty-stories above us. “She’s meeting him, no doubt.”
“No doubt.” Whatever’s going to happen in that building is not good. “She’s moving money, meeting with Peter.”
Bogdan grunts, saying without words that this is bad. “You want to post up here for a while?” He checks the mirrors.
“No, we’re already too close. Cameras, guards—only a matter of time before someone spots us. Drive.”
He pulls into traffic, the car gliding back into the river of sedans and SUVs. I watch the skyscraper shrink in the rearview mirror.
They’re both moving, and soon. Now. What their ultimate plans are is hard to say. But no doubt part of it involves coming for everything I have—my company, my name, my family.
Gabriella.
The mere thought of her name in Peter’s mouth makes me see red, makes me feel feral. I’ve been telling myself that keeping the final truth about him from Gabriella is about safety. But no, it’s about control. Not just controlling whatshe knows, but for me, feeling like I can make a decision to control the greater outcome.
But watching Ruth step into that building makes it clear—the future is coming. And likely war with it.
