Chapter 3
Serena’s eyes locked onto mine through the camera. A triumphant, wicked smile spread across her red lips. She let out a soft, breathy giggle.
"Coming, baby," she called back. She looked at the screen one last time. "Goodnight, Evelyn. Sweet dreams."
Click.
The screen went black. I sat alone in the freezing Manhattan darkness, the dead silence of the apartment ringing in my ears like a gunshot.
By 7:00 AM the next morning, the internet was completely sterile.
Every trashy gossip article, every clickbait headline, every blurry paparazzi shot of me reaching for his sleeve—gone. Erased.
My phone buzzed on the kitchen counter. It was Chloe.
"Chief, whoever handles the Moretti family's public relations is terrifyingly efficient," she said, sounding relieved. "Your transfer is safe."
"Good. Send me the final toxicology reports for the John Doe," I replied, keeping my voice entirely flat.
"Already in your inbox. Oh, and... you might want to stay off social media today anyway."
I hung up. I opened my app.
Luka’s profile picture stared back at me.
His profile picture was always that crystal dog. We haggled over it at a Brooklyn flea market when he was sixteen. I paid four dollars for it. He kept it on his nightstand until the day the police took him away.
The dog was gone.
Now, his picture was a photograph taken from behind. A man in a flawlessly tailored Brioni suit. A blonde woman in a silk dress, her head resting intimately on his shoulder. His arm wrapped securely around her waist.
Serena.
I stared at the photo. My chest tightened, a familiar phantom pain flaring behind my ribs.
Click.
I locked the screen. I tossed the phone into my bag. I didn't have the time or the luxury to bleed over a photograph.
For the next four days, the morgue became my sanctuary.
Stainless steel tables. Harsh fluorescent lights. The sharp sting of formaldehyde. The dead didn't play mind games, and they didn't break promises.
I expedited my transfer paperwork. I pushed through autopsies until my hands shook from sheer exhaustion. The freezing air in the underground examination room was exactly what I needed to numb the hollow ache inside me.
Friday, 1:00 AM.
I finished my last report and took the service elevator down to the underground parking garage. I dug through my trench coat pocket, my fingers brushing against my car keys.
A shadow detached itself from the concrete pillar next to my sedan.
Before my brain could even register the threat, a heavy hand clamped over my wrist. The keys clattered loudly to the floor.
A massive force slammed me back against the pillar. The impact knocked the wind straight out of my lungs.
"Leaving me again?" a voice rasped in the dark.
Cedar. Stale tobacco. Hard liquor.
Luka.
His eyes were completely bloodshot, wild and feral in the dim, flickering light. He caged me in, his heavy forearm pressing against the concrete right beside my throat. The heat radiating off his body was suffocating.
"Luka, back off. You’re drunk," I ordered.
He let out a broken, ugly laugh. "You're running away. Always running. You really think you can just throw me away and disappear?"
"Let go of me."
"No."
He crashed his mouth down on mine.
It wasn't a kiss. It was an execution.
Teeth clashed violently. He bit my bottom lip hard enough to tear the skin. The sharp, metallic taste of copper flooded my mouth. I shoved at his chest, my palms hitting solid, unyielding muscle.
He was punishing me. He was pouring five years of caged rage, isolation, and abandonment into a single, brutal assault.
My hands balled into fists, striking his shoulders, trying to find any leverage. He didn't even flinch. He just caught both of my wrists with one massive hand and pinned them above my head against the cold concrete.
I struggled, but the harder I fought, the deeper he pushed. Then, a treacherous thought pierced through my panic: I am leaving. This is the last time I will ever touch him.
My rigid spine softened against the rough pillar. I kissed him back.
The second my lips parted for him, the violence shifted into a desperate, consuming fire. He dropped my wrists, his large hands immediately going to work. He shoved my trench coat off my shoulders.
The freezing garage air hit my exposed chest, but it was instantly replaced by his blistering heat. His rough, calloused palms clamped directly onto my bare skin. One hand gripped the back of my thigh, hoisting my leg up and pinning my hip flush against his groin. Even through the fabric of his suit, I could feel exactly how hard and deeply aroused he was, grinding heavily against my aching core.
His other hand slid up my ribcage, pushing my lace bra aside to ruthlessly cup and knead my bare breast. His thumb flicked over my hardening peak, dragging a shameless, desperate moan from my throat.
All logic completely evaporated. My hands tangled in his dark hair, my nails digging into his scalp as I arched into his touch, craving the friction. We were panting, tearing at each other's clothes, completely consumed by years of repressed, suffocating desire.
Just as his fingers hooked under the waistband of my skirt, ready to drag it down... his movements suddenly went sluggish.
"You want to leave me in that cell..." he mumbled, his voice thick, slurred, and completely wrecked. "In the dark... all alone... aren't you?"
My heart cracked wide open. My fingers went slack against the wall.
Then, he exhaled a heavy breath against my neck.
"Serena..."
The name hit me like a defibrillator shock.
Ice flooded my veins. The illusion shattered into a million pieces. He didn't come here for me. I was just a convenient stand-in for his perfect, devoted fiancée. The woman who actually "saved" him.
Adrenaline surged. I ripped my wrists free and slammed my knee upward.
He grunted, stumbling back against the hood of my car.
"Don't ever touch me again," I spat, wiping the blood from my torn lip with the back of my hand.
He leaned against the metal, barely keeping his eyes open, completely lost in his intoxicated haze.
I grabbed him by the collar of his expensive coat, dragged his heavy frame to the street level, and shoved him into the back of a passing yellow cab.
"The Moretti Estate in Long Island," I told the terrified driver, tossing two hundred-dollar bills through the open window. "Lock the doors. Don't let him out until you hit the main gates."
I watched the red taillights fade into the New York night. I stood alone on the freezing curb, forcing myself to believe I felt absolutely nothing.
My last Sunday in New York.
My apartment was completely empty. The boxes were shipped. My one-way flight to Geneva was in exactly fourteen hours.
I walked up the massive stone steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The heavy wooden doors groaned as I pushed them open. The familiar smell of melting wax and old incense hit me instantly, dragging up memories I tried desperately to bury.
I don't believe in God. I deal in forensic facts. Bone density. Lividity. Blood spatter.
But I believed in a desperate sixteen-year-old boy.
Four years into our life together, I took a cartel hitman's knife to the stomach after testifying in federal court. I coded twice in the ICU.
Luka didn't wait in the hospital waiting room. He walked through a blinding winter blizzard out to this exact cathedral. He knelt on these frozen stone steps in a thin t-shirt for twelve straight hours, refusing to move a single inch until the surgeons called to say I was stable.
Every year after that, on this exact date, he dragged me here to light a candle.
His prayer cards started: Keep Evelyn safe.
By his eighteenth birthday, the ink changed: I want to marry Evelyn.
I used to lose my temper. I ripped the cards up and tossed them in the trash, telling him to stop acting crazy and respect the church. He would just give me that dark, obsessive smile, pull out a pen, and write five more.
I walked down the center aisle, my boots muffled by the thick red carpet. I reached into my purse for a lighter. Just one last candle for the road. For the boy he used to be.
"Luka, look. The flames are so pretty today."
The sweet, high-pitched voice echoed softly from the side altar.
I froze.
I stepped instantly behind a thick marble column, peering through the dim, flickering light.
Serena was standing by the votive candles. She wore a pristine white cashmere coat, her arm hooked perfectly through Luka’s.
He was looking down at her. The cold, calculating mafia heir actually looked gentle. He held a long wooden match, his large hand guiding hers to light a fresh candle in the very front row.
My spot.
The exact spot we used for six years.
The air in the massive cathedral suddenly felt too thin to breathe. I didn't want a confrontation. I didn't want a messy, dramatic goodbye. I just wanted to vanish.
I spun around, keeping my head down, making a fast, silent beeline for the heavy side-exit doors.
"Leaving without saying a prayer, Evelyn?"
