Page 39 of The Silent Princess

“How can I make sure you are safe in there?”

“What do you mean?” I sign. Something passes across his face, but it is guarded, unreadable.

“I want a guarantee of your safety.”

“Why?”

“Because you have a bruise on your face, Ella, and because…” He pauses, running a hand through his hair. “Never mind.”

“I can text you once I am in my room. Would it…help?”

“Actually, yes. Could you give me your phone ? I will add my number.” I nod and give him my not-so-tech-savvy phone, unlocking it and watching him type before handing it back to me.

“If you do not text me in five minutes, I will break in.”

“What? Why…”

“Just-could you…do that for me?”

“I… Yes, okay. Thank you for driving me back.” A second stretches as he looks at me, an unmistakable hunger in his eyes.

“When can I see you again?”

“Tomorrow, after my shift, but it means you would have to be up at one o’clock, and…”

“I’ll be there,” he says with the calm tone I have become accustomed to. My mouth turns dry, and I reach for the door, noticing his hand twitch as if I have committed a felony by opening it myself. I step down, small raindrops falling on my hair like a veil. We exchange a look, the same one we did in his office when he cupped my face and pierced through me with daggers of truth. I almost run to the house. Unable to look back. A terrifying feeling settles inside me that if he commanded me to come back to him, I would in a heartbeat.

Chapter Eleven

Tristan

Ella Brooks: Safe and sound. Thank you for driving me back.

Me: Goodnight, Ella.

Iwait until she writes to me before leaving her street. Which gives me ten minutes to answer a few emails and receive Brenton’s confirmation that, yes, it was a Vodianov car parked in front of her house just before we arrived. Why were they there? Brenton is still pulling strings to uncover Mara Brooks’s banking files, which are unusually hard to get our hands on. Instinct tells me to back off, let her live her life, and go on with mine. Yet, another part of me wants to break in at night just to watch her sleep. Just to make sure I will not find another red mark on her skin. Speaking of which, I will pay a little visit to that stepmother of hers and give her my opinion on the matter.

I come home, untying my tie in a rush, suffocating from not having her presence around me. Trying to shake her away in an attempt to think, I turn on the television. Money games, singing competitions. Nothing captivating enough to tear me away from the residence she is establishing beneath my skin. Standing at the windows, eyes on my backyard, I shove whiskey down my throat, the scotch not burning enough to undo her damage. Running a palm over my face, I hiss at the sting of the bruise she took care of earlier.

Plans are already in motion. Strategies to take her away from her house, her job, and put her back on the path she should have been on all along. Although my mind wanders to other places too, dangerous ones made of promises and bonds and trust and things I have never dreamed of experiencing with another living soul. Her name beside my family name, shining like evidence.

Ella, forgive me.

I’m afraid your life is about to change, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

* * *

Morning comes faster than usual since I hardly slept, my thoughts tormented by a thousand storms made from the same waves, all carrying her name. I waited all night, like a prisoner on death row, hoping for the miracle of her granting me another message, but it never came, because she slept soundly, which I realize was selfish of me to wish otherwise. If she does not write to me at night, then I will break in to watch her sleep. Which seems reasonable enough. Roaming my hand over the empty pillow beside me, I take in my large and clinical bedroom, the black curtains dragging the light out, reminding me how little of it I still have inside me. Her hair could be spilled here, right where my fingers drape over the fabric.

I grab my phone and watch from my bedside table, along with Mara’s Brook report I received around two a.m., Brenton’s skills are sharp and lethal, aiming right where I wanted. Her bank statements from the last decade, former and current off-the-books financial maneuvers, and records from former employees displaying a not-so-great-looking portrait of a CEO. Too much cash flow for a company of this size. Where is all her money going? Investments worth millions poured into funds that have collapsed over the last two years. Bad instinct bleeding on paper and confirming my own. Her company, Ethereal Design, is bleeding as if slaughtered at the jugular, faking success with a bandage made of dubious cash injections and new investments from foreign countries through virtual businesses, shell companies, nonexistent fronts, sending us straight through Russia and confirming it all.

Ella’s stepmother is doing business with the Vodianovs to save her company.

How this whole deal even began, I will have to find out. In the meantime, I am holding above her head a sword capable of ruining her reputation. In the same way that she is holding above Ella the constant threat of her hand. I have never hurt a woman. Thankfully, there are different ways to wound someone. Not every cut needs to slash the skin. Some can be deeper, tormenting their victim from the inside, aiming at the heart, the ego, the irrepressible urge to exist in our world, all taken away from them with a snap of my fingers.

Her schedule is in the report; I check it against my own. Perfect. I have enough time to drop by and give her a short hello before my first investor meeting this morning.

A shower washes Ella’s scent away from me, the predator lurking inside my gut needing to focus and hide my intentions behind a social mask made of a lethal mix of calm, authority, and strategy. The chess game is already playing in my mind, and Mara Brooks’s pawn is flinching at the end of my barrel. Shaving my stubble neatly, I let the blade slide over my skin. Towel around my waist, I take in my reflection. At least taking out my anger, rage, and every frustration in my private gym is worth it. There is a sense of enjoyment in hiding this, like a machine with all its upgrades, ready to strike at any time, switching suits for boxing shorts. I have not always been this way, but I have come to realize that discipline and consistency can build a body and just as much train a brain to endure pain daily.