“I just mean that you were young when it all happened,” she says. “That’s a lot to handle, especially with both your parents gone.”
“Something I think you know a little about.” I lift up so we’re face to face. I tuck a strand of Lena’s hair behind one ear. “You lost both your parents, too.”
“I’ve lost two sets, actually. So, yeah. I’m speaking from experience.” Lena looks at me with eyes so clear I can see the sadness there, deep down to her soul. I want to pull her close, to strip that pain away and take the burden from her. But she just gives me a somber smile, her shoulders straight as she bears all she’s lost.
“Tell me,” I say, not wanting her to carry it alone. “Tell me about them.”
“There’s not much to tell about my birth parents, honestly. My mom arrived at the hospital alone. My dad had already died a few months before. I was born, she died a day later due to complications from having me. The nuns who ran the hospital moved me to their orphanage shortly after. The Haywoods adopted me a month after that. I was lucky. I know that. Far luckier than most. The Haywoods raised me, loved me. They weren’t perfect—no one is—but they were great parents. They died when I was eighteen. I miss them. All the time.”
A tear slips down Lena’s cheek. She must not realize because she’s startled when I wipe it away. “And your aunt?”
“My mom’s sister,” she answers with a sad smile. “They weren’t close, but Mable didn’t want me to be alone after my parents died, didn’t want me to feel like I didn’t have anyone on my side. So, she informally adopted me.”
“She sounds like a kind woman.”
Lena looks to the ceiling, a few more tears escaping. “She really was. She didn’t deserve to die that way, Rem. We have to figure out why she died that way.”
“We will,mia amata. I promise we will.”
Lena kisses me, her lips hard and demanding. Our emotions are raw, dangerously exposed after revealing our pasts to each other. I drink from her, tasting the bittersweet chocolate and salty tears, touching her face and neck until she relaxes into me.
The kiss goes from savage to sweet, each touch punctuated by a quick breath, a flutter of eyelashes. When we eventually part, Lena is looking at me with an expression I haven’t seen before. A look that reaches through my ribs, grabs my still-beating heart and squeezes tight.
“Thank you,” she says, our foreheads touching.
“For?”
“For everything. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or next week, or if I’ll still be alive in a month. But for everything you’ve done for me since that first night— thank you.”
I want to confess right now. To tell Lena everything my uncle has accused her of, to tell her my brother and I have been keeping tabs on her for months. To tell her that up until recently I thought she was a threat to my family. A family I’ve now made her a part of. I want to confess everything, to clear my conscious, to start a real life with this amazing woman. But Lena breaks away before I can even figure out where to start, getting off the bed before I can stop her.
“Where are you going?”
“Just wait.” She dashes into the bathroom, and I hear her rustling around in the closet. A minute later she’s back, uncurling her hand in front of my face. “Can you help me put this on?”
“What is it?”
Lena lets the necklace fall from her hand, the chain looped around one finger. It’s gold, a small circular pendant swinging from the bottom. “It’s the only thing I have left of my birth mother. She was wearing it when she died, and the nuns made sure it stayed with me.”
I take the delicate piece from her, clasping it around her neck as she holds her hair out of the way. As soon as it’s on, Lena touches the pendant, the movement so instinctive I can tell she’s done it a million times. Some of the tension leaves her body, the beloved jewelry back where it belongs. “It feels so good to have it back.”
“Why was it at your aunt’s house?”
“The clasp broke on a previous visit. Aunt Mable offered to get it fixed and held onto it until the next time I came by.”
“Which was supposed to be the day of the fire.”
“Yes,” Lena says on a deep sigh. “It’s a miracle it survived.”
And that you did too.I must be just as exhausted as Lena, because my throat closes at the thought, my lungs burning as I try to push back more emotions than I’ve felt in years. I touch the pendant around Lena’s neck, trace the lines of the pattern imprinted there.
The room around us is quiet, shadows growing as the sun sets beyond the windows. My men are walking the building’s perimeter, more standing guard in the hallways. This hotel has hosted pop stars, movie stars, presidents. Their security is second to none except mine. We’re safe here, secluded in this oasis from the real world and the threats circling closer and closer to Lena.
But as I look at the necklace around my wife’s neck, a memory starts to twist in the back of my brain. It’s just a thread, a scrap of an image—nothing I can see clearly. But I feel a pit open up in my stomach as I become more and more certain that I’ve seen her necklace somewhere before.
It’s stilldark outside when I wake up, head pounding. I know where I’ve seen it.
As quietly as possible, I slip out of bed and make my way through the suite to the large living room. I dig my laptop out of its case, wincing when the blue light flashes bright in the darkness.