Page 35 of Porcelain Vows

And for now, that’s enough.

Chapter Fifteen

Stella

I drift into sleep wrapped in Aleksei’s arms, his warmth enveloping me like a cocoon.

It feels right. Everything feels right when we’re like this. Safe. Secure.

Until it happens again. Another nightmare.

His steady breathing against my neck should be comforting, but as consciousness slips away, I’m pulled not into peaceful darkness but into something else entirely.

This dream is different.

My mind knows it the moment it starts.

Unlike the jumbled pictures that have haunted me since waking in the hospital— disjointed images and half-formed memories— this feels crystal clear.

Movie-like. Real. Too real.

In this dream, I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, a phone pressed to my ear while I listen to words that I don’t want to hear. The voice on the other side is familiar.

It’s Hannah’s voice.

She’s my friend.

The name from the missed calls on the hidden phone. With the name, comes the memory of a face— expressive and animated, surrounded by wild red curls. Recognition hits like a tidal wave, leaving me reeling.

“Your father’s death was staged. A professional hit,” she’s saying, keeping her voice gentle but firm. “Your father was running from men who’d been sent for him. I’m so sorry to tell you this, Stels.”

I argue with her because it makes no sense. “Why? Why would someone do this to him? Who would want to hurt my dad? He… he was no one.” I try to process what she’s said, but my mind is resisting.

And then she says the words that flip my world upside down: “Stella, the hit was organized by Aleksei Tarasov.”

Aleksei Tarasov.

Even in sleep, I feel the shock ripple through my body, the denial rising in my chest. I envision my father’s broken body trapped in a cage of twisted metal, blood pooling on asphalt. I see my mother’s lifeless hand curled around a vial of poison.

She took her own life.

My mother killed herself over my father’s death. And it was all Aleksei’s fault.

I feel the grief of knowing that I would have to bury both of them just weeks apart. I remember how I did it all alone because Nick had been hiding. Hiding from the man who would kill him for the money that he owed. And that man was also Aleksei. The man who shattered my entire family is sleeping beside me after making love to me.

Aleksei Tarasov.

In another flash, I can feel the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, where I’d sat after emptying the contents of my stomach. Because I’d known with absolute certainty that I couldn’t stay with my father’s killer.

I had to run.

So, I did.

The scene shifts, and suddenly I’m on a crowded street, surrounded by protesters holding signs and chanting. The noise of the crowd swells around me, anonymous faces pressing in from all sides. I don’t know where I’m going to go. All I know is that I have to get as far away from my father’s killer as possible. I’m anxious, hiding among a throng of people as I slip away from the guard assigned to me, acting on impulse. One of many who’d watched my every move. I’d been a prisoner in this place, not a lover or even a guest. Aleksei was forcing me to stay here until I had my baby.

Aleksei Tarasov did it.

I toss in my sleep as more memories assail me. Now, the taste of greasy burger and salty fries lingers on my tongue— junk food Aleksei had forbidden during my pregnancy, but that I’d defiantly consumed after fleeing Blackwood Manor.