Page 77 of The King's Pawn
Nat is loyal. She’s kind but she’s also human. People like her talk, they always do. Especially in a city like this. While I would never blame her for spreading my business because of a misplaced sense of assistance, the last thing I want is to get her involved in any of this.
“I’m… with someone who’s hiding me,” I say carefully. “Someone my dad knows.”
Her voice jumps an octave. “What? Who?”
“Whatever my dad is saying,” I rush on before she can interrupt, panic tightening my chest, “don’t trust him. I just found out he’s the one who had my mother killed.”
“What?”Nat chokes.
“My mom didn’t die in an accident. He ordered it. I found the paperwork. I confronted him, and he confessed,” I say, the words sounding unbelievable even to my own ears.
Her breath catches audibly like she’s been punched. “Oh, my God, Alina. By who?”
“I can’t say, but I’ve had everything confirmed from the source.”
It feels wrong talking about it like this, flat and clinical like I’m reading from a report instead of recounting the worst truth of my life. On the other end of the phone, Nat is falling apart in real time, her grief raw and immediate. Something I should be feeling just as deeply.
But… I’ve already bled myself dry. I’ve had weeks to sit with this. Weeks for the shock to burn down into numbness. Now when I talk about my mother, there’s only a dull ache that presses against my ribs, persistent and heavy but survivable.
“Alina, this is… this is insane. You need to go to the police.”
I almost laugh. “I can’t. You don’t understand how deep this goes.”
“Then come to me,” she pleads. “Please. I’ll help you. I don’t care what it takes.”
The sincerity in her voice nearly undoes me. “I can’t put you in danger. I just needed… I needed someone to know I’m alive. That… I’m not crazy.”
“You’re not,” she says fiercely. “You hear me? You’re not.”
Footsteps echo faintly in the hallway outside the office.
Shit…
“Nat,” I whisper. “I have to go.”
“What? No—wait—Alina!”
“If anyone asks,” I cut in softly, “you haven’t heard from me. Not really. And if my dad says anything—anything—assume it’s a lie.”
“I…” Her voice breaks again. “I love you.”
The words hit harder than anything else.
“I love you too,” I say right before the receiver is ripped out of my hand.
I gasp sharply, the sound tearing from my throat as I spin around, my heart slamming so hard against my chest it hurts. For a split second, the room tilts when I see exactly who’s standing behind me.
Sasha.
He stands impossibly close, one hand gripping the phone I was just holding, his knuckles white around it as the tendons stand out starkly beneath his skin. The other hangs loose at his side, deceptively relaxed. His suit jacket is gone, his sleeves rolled up like he’d been pulled from something urgent and unfinished.
But it’s his eyes that stop my heart entirely.
They’re black. Not dark, not shadowed,blackin a way that swallows the light instead of reflecting it.
“Who,” he says quietly, each syllable precise and deadly, “were you talking to?”
The words land like a loaded gun on the table between us.
