Chapter 165

“But maybe that’s why I love it,” I continue. “Because for once, we’re making choices based on what we want, not what we fear.”

Later, I sit on the porch again, nursing a glass of wine and staring at the black expanse of ocean. The moon casts a silver path across the water, like a road leading back to him if only I were brave enough to take it.

Or perhaps too fearless to stay away.

The burner phone rings, shattering the silence. Only one person has this number.

“Tell me you’re okay,” Natalie’s voice comes through, tight with worry.

“Define ‘okay,’” I reply, taking another swallow of wine. “Physically unharmed? Yes. Emotionally functional? Not in the least.”

“One of Vince’s men found me today,” she says. “Asked questions. Pointed a gun at my head. The usual Akopov hospitality.”

My blood freezes. “Natalie —”

“I didn’t tell him anything,” she cuts me off. “But Rowan, they’re closing in. Vince is… I’ve never seen him like this. He’s gone nuclear. The entire Eastern Seaboard is looking for you.”

“Let them look,” I say.

“He’s suspended the operation against your father, you know. Completely shut it down.”

Hope flares in my chest like a match struck in darkness. “He did?”

“Yep. It’s dead quiet over there. Nothing happening. He’s just waiting.”

Waiting. The word echoes inside me, rearranging my organs into a configuration that makes breathing possible again.

“I have to go,” I tell her, suddenly desperate to end the call. Too many emotions are threatening to overflow, and I can’t afford to drown in them. Not yet.

“Be careful, Row. And maybe… maybe consider that he’s trying to change.”

After hanging up, I curl into myself on the porch swing, letting the ocean breeze carry away the tears I can no longer contain.

Vince suspended the operation. He’s standing down. The knowledge soothes me as much as it tortures me.

Because now, I don’t know what to do.

Stay away and hope his reformation sticks? Return and risk him reverting to the monster who would murder my father while fucking me under the stars?

Before I can decide, the sound of a twig snapping jerks me upright. One of my perimeter bells jingles softly in the distance.

Someone is here.

I move silently inside and grab the gun I keep wrapped in a dish towel in the kitchen drawer. My hands don’t shake as I check the chamber. Another gift from Vince—teaching me to shoot without flinching.

The bells ring again. Whoever it is, they’re closer now.

I position myself between the front door and Sofiya’s room, gun aimed at the entry point. Blood rushes in my ears and drowns out everything but my daughter’s soft breathing from the next room and the approaching footsteps on the porch.

A shadow passes by the window.

The doorknob turns slowly.

The door swings inward.

“I thought I might find you here,” a familiar voice says as the breeze carries the scent of aftershave toward me. “Your mother always did love the ocean.”

The gun wavers in my hands as Grigor Petrov steps into the beach house, moonlight illuminating the face that’s half-mine.

48

ROWAN

“Dad.”

I’ve spent a lifetime not knowing this man. Now, he’s here, in the flesh, standing on weathered floorboards with salt-crusted windows at his back.

Ironic that the first time I call him “Dad” is down the barrel of a gun.

He steps into the moonlit beach house, blocking what little light filters through the doorway. My pulse throbs in my fingertips. Each beat is another moment where I don’t lower the weapon pointed at his heart.

He doesn’t look afraid. Just patient. Like he’s been waiting for this moment longer than I’ve been alive.

“Put the gun down, Rowan,” Grigor says. “If you wanted me dead, you wouldn’t have run from the man planning to kill me.”

The gun weighs a thousand pounds in my hand. “How did you find me?”

“This place belonged to my grandmother.” He moves slowly into the living room, hands visible. “I gave the address to your mother once. Told her if she ever needed sanctuary, this place would be waiting.” His eyes—my eyes —scan the room with a familiar sigh. “When I heard you’d disappeared with my granddaughter, I knew there was a chance you’d know it from my

letters. Just a guess, but a good one, as it turns out.”

I finally lower the gun. But I don’t put it down. “Is Vince here? Did you bring him?”

“No. He doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Bullshit.”

“I swear on your mother’s grave.” His voice softens. “I came alone.”

My knees feel suddenly weak, and I sink onto the threadbare couch. The gun rests in my lap.

“Why?” I manage to ask.

Grigor takes the chair opposite me. “Because you fled in the night with my only grandchild. And you chose this place—my family’s place—to hide. It seemed like… an invitation.”

“I didn’t know you’d come.”

“Didn’t you?” He studies me, head tilted slightly. “The same way you didn’t know Vincent would suspend his operation against me the moment you disappeared? The same way you didn’t know you’d eventually need to talk to someone who understands what it means to love a monster?”

“Vincent isn’t a monster,” I snap instinctively.

Grigor’s mouth twitches, just shy of a smile. “And there it is. The contradiction that’s been eating you alive. You run from him, yet you defend him. You fear what he might do, yet you love what he is.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Everything.” He strokes his beard. “I’ve loved a St. Clair woman, too.”

I slump back against the couch, more exhausted than I can ever remember being in my entire life.

“Tell me about her,” I demand lifelessly. I’m suddenly desperate to hear about my mother through his eyes. “Anything you remember.”