Page 47 of Her Darkest Possession

It's addressed to Amelia Taylor.

I take the envelope from him with slightly trembling fingers and turn it over. There's no return address, but I don't need one to know who sent this.

There's only one person in the world who would still write letters to Amelia Tyalor.

Ryan.

I tear open the envelope and find heavy expensive paper. He probably picked it to make him seem important. It's exactly the kind of shit Ryan did when we used to date.

And it seems that nothing has changed. Slowly, I unfold the letter and start reading.

My dearest Amelia,

I've thought about you every day since I saw you at the hospital. You looked so beautiful, and I can't help but be reminded of our time together at Columbia, before all this unpleasantness. Before you made the choices that led you away from me.

I've never stopped loving you, Amelia. What we had was real, and I know deep down you must feel the same. Whatever this Russian criminal has done to you, whatever he's forced you to?—

I shove the letter back into the envelope, bile rising in my throat. The audacity. The absolute fucking audacity.

"What is it?" Svetlana asks, watching me carefully from her hospital bed.

I take a deep breath, trying to control the wave of disgust washing over me. "Nothing. Just Ryan being Ryan."

"What does he want?" Amara asks, her voice small. She knows enough about what happened to understand why I might be upset.

"What do you think?" I ask back bitterly. "It's the same shit he said to me two years ago. About how much he loves me. How much he misses me. How everything changed with all the 'unpleasantness'—" I make air quotes with my fingers, "—and how he can't understand why I'd choose Anatoly over him."

"God, fuck that guy." Amara shakes her head. "You want to write him back and tell him to go fuck himself?"

"No," I say. "If I do that, then he wins. He doesn't give a shit about me. He just hates the fact that he doesn't have me. He's looking for a reaction. And I'm not going to give him one."

"Then what are you going to do?" Svetlana asks, leaning forward despite her injuries.

I stand up and walk towards the door.

"I'm going to go find a lighter," I say simply. "And then I'm going to burn it."

I walk downthe hallway with Ryan's letter crumpled in my fist, my jaw clenched so tight it aches. I just need to burn this thing, erase this unwanted intrusion from my life.

As I pass Anatoly's study, I notice the door is slightly ajar, a sliver of warm light spilling into the hallway. I push it open without knocking. It's something I never would have done a few months ago, but now feels as natural as breathing.

Anatoly sits behind his massive desk, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the tattoos I've traced with my fingertips countless times. He's on the phone, speaking rapid Russian, but when he sees me, he immediately stops mid-sentence. Those piercing blue eyes take me in, and I see his expression shift as he registers something in my face.

"I'll call you back," he says into the phone before hanging up.

For a moment, we just look at each other across the room. I'm still getting used to the way he sees me, really sees me. Not as a tool or a means to an end, but as his wife. As the mother of his child.

His gaze drops to the crumpled envelope in my hand, and one eyebrow arches slightly.

"Do you have a lighter?" I ask.

He doesn't ask me why I'm asking about it, just reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a heavy silver lighter. I walk over andtake it from him, our fingers brushing in a way that still sends electricity through my skin.

I smooth out the letter on the edge of his desk, just enough so it will burn properly, and then walk to the nearby fireplace.

"What is that?" Anatoly asks as he stands next to me.

"A letter from Ryan Bennet," I say. "Telling me how much he loves me. How much he misses me."