Pulling my hand back, I search in her pocket and retrieve her phone. Sure, I could’ve used mine, but I don’t want her to know I saved her.
I’m not her savior. I’m her worst nightmare.
I put the phone to my ear, and a woman picks up immediately.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“A girl has been attacked in the forest at the edge of Blackwood. She’s unconscious but still breathing. Trace her GPS.”
“Who are you, sir?”
I stand up, looking down at her. “A hunter.”
I cut off the call and remain by her side until actual sirens come to the site.
That’s when I retreat to the shadows and disappear.
But she’ll find me in her hospital room as soon as she wakes up, and she’ll fucking tell me why she was escaping.
Present
I stop in front of the cottage. The signs of the fire that ate it a few weeks ago are still visible through the blackened walls and the police tape.
Human remains.
The other one.
The police and those men’s words still echo in my head. Reina is in too deep if she’s involved with the bratva.
And they were from the bratva. Alex thinks so, too; I confirmed it when I heard his conversation with his adviser the other day.
He just doesn’t want to take any steps as long as Reina remains untouched and under his care.
The question is, what the fuck is she doing here knowing exactly the threat to her life? Alex made sure to warn her. I heard him countless times.
Stay in crowded places, Reina.
If you remember anything, let me know first, Reina.
I’m going to get you security, Reina.
Of course, she refused the latter, brushing him off with a smile—a fake one at that.
She’s become so fucking stubborn, it’s maddening.
I release a breath as I walk up. She’s been avoiding me these last couple of days, but fuck that.
Me being a part of her life is a non-negotiable fact.
Even when I was in England for the past three years, I was always an undividable part of her life.
I lurked under her skin and breathed down her neck.
She’s been doing the same, but fuck it.
I stop at the threshold of the cottage. It’s dark and humid inside, still smelling of the soot and the smoke from that day.
Human remains, they said, and they think Reina did it—at least that detective does.
I talked to him after the last time he visited us. I could see the malice in his eyes as he spoke about my ‘fiancée’ as a criminal and said I should have her confess her crimes.
It took all my self-restraint not to bash his head against the hood of his car and tell him, in no uncertain terms, that if he threatens her again, I will gut his intestines out.
Reina didn’t do it.
It’s funny how I believe it with every fiber of my being even though I didn’t witness what happened.
The bratva is behind all of this, but I can’t say anything because I have no evidence, no names, not even clear descriptions of the men I saw that night.
If I gave an unintelligible statement, it’d only make the mafia target me—and Reina.
For some reason, I think they’ve kept away because they figured she lost her memories and said nothing about them to the police.
If she does remember, it’ll be a direct threat to her life.
Still, she needs to get herself off of Detective Daniels’ radar.
He doesn’t know her as much as I do, so he has no idea she absolutely doesn’t have what it takes to end a life. She only does it from afar, like with Ari.
Ending a life takes something more than courage and determination. It takes a black heart and a desolate soul.
To my fucking dismay, the new Reina doesn’t have that.
I halt at the entrance as I turn on the flashlight. Reina lies in a fetal position on the ground, eyes closed and face camouflaged by her hair.
My breathing stops as I wait for the rise and fall of her shoulder—for evidence that she’s alive.
When it does move, my feet run of their own volition, like that day when all I thought about was her safety.
Once again, that’s all I think about.
I try to tell my pulse to stay the fuck down, but it’s not listening to me. I direct the light at her face as I crouch in front of her.
“Reina?” My movements are slow as I push a strand of blond hair off her face.
Her brows are furrowed together, mouth twisting in agony. Her eyes are shut so tight, it appears painful.
Something snaps in my chest, a feeling I never wanted to experience after those years in high school.
When I thought she was the only one for me.
“Open your fucking eyes, Reina.”
She mumbles something under her breath. I lean over to hear her, but it’s not making sense. She’s speaking in a foreign language.
Is that Russian?
“R-Rai…Rai…”
Who the fuck is Rai?
Reina and her endless secrets just keep mounting over the years.
I place an arm under her pale, bare thighs and the other around her back to carry her in my arms.
She fits so perfectly, like she was made for my hands. She was made for me.
I watch the furrowing of her brows as her head drops against my chest. She looks so fragile right now, so soft, like the girl I saw for the first time after she disappeared when we were twelve. It was the first time I decided I liked that girl, the first time I thought about kissing a girl.
She was Gareth’s only daughter, so I’d met her before, but I had never felt the need to come closer to her like when she returned. There was something changed about her. Something more exotic, raw, and…broken.
I realize that now. I was attracted to the broken side of her before I even knew what the fuck that was.
When Alexander said we were to be engaged, I thought I’d hit the jackpot.
If it hadn’t been for her cold, aloof reaction.
I lean my head over and suck her bottom lip into my mouth like I did at twelve when she was sleeping in our guest house.
A shudder goes through her as I brush my lips against hers one last time. “You’ll never escape me, my ugly monster.”
My mouth is dry.
That’s the first thought I have as I open my eyes. All thoughts of being thirsty disappear when I make out my surroundings.
I’m lying in a queen-sized bed with sheets that aren’t my own. The white light in the ceiling isn’t from my room either.
I jerk to a sitting position and check under the covers. I’m still wearing my clothes from earlier. Thank God.
Slowly, I inch to the edge, and my toes get swallowed by the plush carpet.
Where is this place? Wasn’t I at the cottage not two seconds ago?
The time on the nightstand reads eight in the evening. I frown. It’s been hours. How the hell has it been hours? I was standing there, taking a trip into the past and trying to remember my life and…
I gasp, covering my mouth with my hands.
All the memories that hit me earlier consume me once more. Mom’s death. Reina’s sacrifice. The fact that I confiscated another person’s name.
This must be why I didn’t feel comfortable with the name Reina Ellis when I woke up in the hospital with wiped memories.
I lived as Rai Sokolov for twelve years. That name resonated with me better, but I had to erase it. I had to become Reina to survive.