73
CORA
His last girlfriend disappeared.
She is still missing.
There are rumors he killed her to end their engagement.
Even with my phone turned off and tucked into my purse, I can see the text messages Jorden sent me against the dark backdrop of my eyelids. I can’t get the words out of my head.
Ivan’s last girlfriend is missing and he couldn’t tell me what happened. Couldn’t or wouldn’t? I’m not sure anymore. I’m not even sure it matters.
The car takes a sharp turn and I press against the back door. My limbs are weak. The fact I’m sitting up right now instead of curled in the fetal position feels like an accomplishment.
Jorden reaches over and squeezes my knee. “Are you okay?”
I look over and try to respond, but the moment I open my mouth, tears fill my eyes. I slam my mouth closed and shake my head.
No. No, I’m not okay at all.
It’s not as if I thought Ivan was a saint. I’ve seen him kill a man. I know his world is violent and bloody.
But I thought he was honest. I thought he was honest about who he is and what he has done. I didn’t think he would lie to me about something this important.
I’m an idiot.
“Men are trash,” Jorden says. “Worse than trash. They’re germs.”
“Hey,” Yasha complains from the driver’s seat. “Not all men are germs.”
“Please be quiet, driver. We’re trying to have a private conversation back here.” Jorden looks to me and rolls her eyes as if to say, Can you believe this guy? “All men are germs, Cora. Every last one of them. Especially the ones that make you cry.”
I didn’t realize tears were rolling down my face again. I groan and swipe at my cheeks. “I’m so stupid. I knew this was—”
All pretend. Those are the words poised at the tip of my tongue.
“I knew this was too good to be true,” I say instead. “I let myself have hope, anyway. I trusted him and I thought he would trust me enough to confide in me, but—”
“Ivan doesn’t confide in people,” Yasha interrupts.
Jorden elbows the back of his seat hard. “This is a private conversation.”
“Well, this is a small car,” Yasha fires back. “And you’re talking about my best friend. I feel like I have a right to defend him.”
“Which goes to show how little you know. You don’t have any rights in this situation.”
“I’m your driver, not a robot. I can talk if I want to—”
“Now is not the time to hear any arguments in defense of Ivan. Now is the time to berate his character and sympathize with Cora. Later, if and when she’s ready, we can be reasonable. Maybe you can have sixty uninterrupted seconds to defend your germy best friend. Until then, it’s venting time.”
I give Jorden my best version of a thankful smile. Though right now, it feels more like a grimace than anything else.
I press my temple against the car window and watch the city pass by in a blur. Staying with Ivan wasn’t an option. I couldn’t sleep in the room next to his and act like nothing was wrong. Passing him in the halls and making polite conversation would have killed me.
The problem is that leaving feels wrong, too.
It’s just all I could think to do.
My dad left. One day, he was there, padding around the house in a pair of worn-through slippers. The next, he was moving in with Crystal and raising a baby that I share half of my DNA with.
Why bother with the old, busted model when you can create your own upgrade?
Why stay when you can go?
My mom stayed physically close, but she left me in every way that counts. She stood by and let her new husband pimp me out to all of his friends’ sons to see if they were interested. Alexander McAllister never had a nice word to say about me unless he needed something—an alliance, an investor, a connection. Then I was the most precious tool he had at his disposal.
My mom never said a word. She stood silently by his side, letting him mold and shape me into whatever he needed at the time. Because she was too scared to leave. Letting your only daughter be used as a bargaining chip was better than being a poor, single mother, apparently.
The one thing it all taught me is that when the going gets tough, you run as fast as you can and never look back.
People abandon you.
You abandon people.
It’s the twisted, knotted-up circle of life.
In all likelihood, Ivan would have been done with me soon enough, anyway. Like everyone else, he would have left me behind, too. All I did is bump up the timeline.
Yet all I can see when I close my eyes is Ivan’s face as he lowered his head and nodded. The broken way he agreed to let me leave.
He didn’t even care enough to fight.
Jorden squeezes my knee again. I have no idea how long it has been or how far we’ve driven. I look over at her, blinking back into reality.
“Do you need anything?” she asks. “My apartment is a grocery deadzone right now. We can stop and Yasha can get you some ice cream.”
“I’m not your delivery boy,” he protests.
Jorden ignores him, her eyes on me. “Maybe chocolate? Vanilla? Both?”
“Thanks, but I’m okay,” I mumble. “I’m not very hungry.”
“I’ll put in a grocery delivery order just in case you change your mind later. You never know what the Bad Boy Blues will demand.”
“The Bad Boy Blues?” I ask.
She gives me a tight smile. “I coined the term. It’s when an asshole breaks your heart like the asshole he is and then you need to fill the hole left behind with snacks. Mine usually calls for a bottle of wine and a bag of salt and vinegar chips.”
Jorden is trying to distract me—or, at the very least, keep me from going catatonic—but I don’t have it in me to joke or pretend. I just want to cry ‘til I fall asleep and then sleep until I’m dead.
“Ivan is not a ‘bad boy,’” Yasha argues. “Ivan is a good guy. This whole thing is a major misunderstanding.”
It hits me all at once that Yasha has been friends with Ivan for years. They are close. He’s his best friend and his second in command.
He probably knows things.
Jorden slaps the back of his headrest, jostling the seat. “Pipe down up there. We don’t want to hear anything from the help.”
“Says the waitress,” Yasha mumbles, earning another slap to the headrest from Jorden.
I wave her off. “It’s okay. Actually… Yasha?”
He’s been trying to talk to me the entire drive, but as soon as I address him, he tenses. “What?”
“What do you know about Katerina?”
“Me?” he asks nervously. “Oh, um…not much. Nothing.”
“Which is it?” Jorden bites. “Not much or nothing?”
God, I love her. I don’t have it in me to fight right now, but Jorden is in a take-no-prisoners kind of mood.
Yasha sighs. “I know her family is… They’re the fucking worst. Katerina was raised like a horse for breeding.”
“I can relate,” I mumble.
Yasha doesn’t hear me and keeps talking. “Ivan and her family have never gotten along. It was always tense because he didn’t like the way they did things. They still don’t see eye to eye on most things.”
“Why did they get engaged in the first place if their families didn’t get along?” The words are out of my mouth before the likely answer comes to me. “Did he…did he love her?”
The knife twists in my gut. Ivan in love. What a sight that would be. What an experience to be on the receiving side of that.
“Ivan and I are close, but we aren’t that close. We don’t talk about love.”
Jorden clicks her tongue in disappointment. “Classic men. God forbid you show your emotions.”
Yasha sits up and looks at her in the rearview mirror. “I express my emotions just fine, thanks. I’m not afraid to bare myself to the world.”
Jorden rolls her eyes again, but I notice the blush creeping up her cheeks.
Yasha pulls down a narrow alley and then into the private parking garage beneath the building. The pillars are crumbling and covered in layers of graffiti. Trash overflows in the trash cans and litters the cracked cement. But there’s a guard waiting at the back door with a gun strapped to his hip.
As Jorden gets out of the car, she wiggles her fingers at the man and grins. “Hi, Leon.”
Yasha looks between the two of them and frowns. I know exactly what Jorden is doing, even if Yasha doesn’t.
My friend loops her arm through mine and pulls me towards the door, saying loudly, “You’re going to love it here, Cora. So many handsome men hanging around to help you get over this little hurdle.”
Then Leon leads us wordlessly into the building as the door closes on Yasha.