Page 18

CHAPTER 18

CILLIAN

Cillian

Hey. I miss you. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I left. But I can’t do this. I’m sorry.

I finish typing it, staring at the screen for a moment before I save it to my drafts, like all the others. Over twenty messages, all waiting for her to read, but none of them ever sent.

I only write them to get it out. To say what I can’t. What I shouldn’t.

But the noise in my head is too loud, the memory of my mother haunting me. Her screams echo in my ears. The sound of her burning alive. It’s all there, like it never left.

Leaning my head back on my sofa, I try to block it out, but it’s still fresh in my mind. And I relive every moment of that day, like it’s happening all over again.

* * *

“I’m sorry, Pat. But she’s gone,” Fred, one of the detectives, tells my father.

“No! Don’t fucking tell me that!” My father fills with rage. “She’s fine! She’s fucking fine.”

When I glance at Tynan, his face is tight, breaths even and controlled, but I know he’s upset too. We all are.

“We got the video he recorded. It’s her. I’m so sorry,” Roy, the other cop, says.

“Play it!” Dad’s on the brink of losing it, his voice simmering. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this scared, this angry. “Play the fucking video!”

“It’s not a good idea.” Roy shakes his head.

“Don’t feckin’ tell me what’s good for me. Play it. Now!” He bangs a fist on the kitchen counter.

“Pat…” Fred tries to calm him down. “You don’t want to see this. Trust me, you don’t want to.”

If what he said was true—if Sergey Marinov burned my mother alive—I’ll never forgive him. Any of them.

“She was my fucking wife! You play it, or I swear I will rip out your bloody throat!”

“Maybe tell the boys to go, then. No child should see their mother this way, no matter how old they are.”

My father snaps the collar of Fred’s shirt, ready to kill him.

“My boys are no boys. They’re men. Play the damn thing,” he spits out.

“Just do it,” Roy tells him.

“Jesus Christ, Pat.” Fred shakes his head, picking up a laptop and pressing a few keys before I hear it.

My mother.

Fuck!

My heart races.

“No! Please!” she screams, while Sergey holds a red canister in his hand, walking around her in circles.

She can’t move. Her hands are zip-tied behind her on the chair in some warehouse.

Sergey laughs. “Kak zhal', chto ya dolzhen ubit' takuyu krasivuyu zhenshchinu.”

“Please,” she sobs. “Please, I’ll do anything. Just name your price. My husband will pay whatever you want. Just call him.”

“Your husband…” He laughs. “…is the reason you’re here.”

“What?” Her body trembles.

Does she know he’s recording her? Does she think we’re gonna save her? How the hell could we have missed this? How the fuck did we not know he took her?

“Nu da, moya dorogaya. He didn’t give me something I wanted, so I take something that belongs to him. I say that’s fair, yes?”

Popping open the canister, he spills the kerosine all over her body as she chokes on it. When he lights a match, my pulse quickens.

God damn it. I can’t watch this. I can’t…

“Oh m-my God, I beg you, please. No! I have children. Don’t do this…”

His laughter…I’ll never forget it. And when he tosses the flame at her, I close my eyes, her screams piercing through the air before dying with her.

And when I look back, she’s not there anymore.

Nothing but charred-up flesh.

I’ll kill him for this. I’ll kill them all for this, and I won’t rest until every one of them pays.

* * *

I never got what I wanted. Aside from Sergey, the rest of the Marinovs are still alive.

And Dinara? She’s out of reach. For good. I meant what I said: she and I will never happen.

I throw my arm over my face, and when I close my eyes, she’s there. My angel and my curse.

Why can’t I get over her? What’s so different about this woman?

My phone buzzes. I grab it, hoping it’s her—maybe a message, her voice that I miss. Even if it’s her cursing me out, I’ll take it. I deserve it.

Wish it was easy to forget everything from the past and just be with her, but I can’t let it go. I can’t be a part of that family, making a life with her like Mom’s death meant nothing at all. She wouldn’t want that. I don’t want that.

Fionn’s name flashes on the screen. When I ignore it, he calls again.

Fuck me.

“What?”

“We’re going to Rzvrt this weekend.”

“Maybe you are, but I’m good. There’s nothing there for me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

I blow an annoyed breath. “What the hell does that mean?”

“What if she shows up? Wouldn’t you wanna know if she’s fucking someone else?”

That’s never gonna happen. If she shows up, I’m bringing her back home. And if she’s with someone else, he’s gonna end up leaving in a body bag.

“I left her. Can’t tell her what to do.” I don’t even sound believable.

Fionn laughs. “You’re full of shit. You’d kill him. We both know it.”

Of course I would.

“So, you coming or not?” he continues.

Well, of course I have to go now. His words will haunt me. If she’s not there, I’ll leave. Simple. But if she’s with someone else...

Good luck to him.

She belongs to me. No one else.

“Fine. I’ll go. Just to make sure she’s not there.”

“And if she is?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He chuckles with a flicker of amusement. “You can’t keep her single forever.”

“Watch me.”

His laughter grows. “I used to think Tynan was the stubborn one, but you’re worse.”

“Whatever.”

“You’re an idiot.” He snickers.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”