Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 44703 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 179(@250wpm)___ 149(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44703 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 179(@250wpm)___ 149(@300wpm)
Not the live feed. The recording. The conversation in the library that he had terminated after six words.
I don’t know how to break the truth to him.
He pressed play.
The footage resumed where he had cut it. Zia in the library, phone to her ear, pacing. Maryah’s voice through the speaker, calm and warm.
“Start from the beginning,” Maryah told her.
Zia took a breath. “Billy showed up. Here. At the fortress. He waited for Alexei to leave, Maryah. He’s been watching us.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I told him to leave. I told him I’m married. But he wouldn’t listen. He kept saying he’d changed, that he fought for me.” Her voice cracked. “And then he told me something I wasn’t expecting. He said...he cheated the compatibility score. Back when we first matched. He wanted me so badly he manipulated the numbers to make sure we’d be paired.”
“He what?”
“His mother found out. That’s why she broke us up, Maryah. It wasn’t because I’m human. It was because he cheated, and she couldn’t trust him after that. But now he’s confessed to her, and she’s forgiven him, and she told him if I can make an honest man out of him, she’s all for it.” A shaky breath. “And the worst part is I feel sorry for him. Because I know what it’s like to love someone who’s already gone, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
“But you don’t love him,” Maryah said.
“No.” Immediate. Certain. Not a trace of hesitation. “No. But I don’t know how to break the truth to him without destroying him.”
Him.
Billy.
She had been talking about Billy.
Maryah’s voice, gentle: “Just tell him the truth, Ry-style. Be kind. Be clear. He deserves that.”
The call ended. Zia stood in the library for a moment, steadying herself. Then she squared her shoulders and walked out.
Alexei switched cameras. The hallway. The living room.
Billy was still there. Standing by the window. Waiting.
Zia walked in, and the expression on her face was the one Alexei knew best, the one she wore when she was about to do something difficult with kindness. The expression of a woman who could not be cruel even when cruelty would have been easier.
“Billy.” Her voice was gentle. Firm but gentle. “I need you to hear me.”
The boy turned. Hope written across his face so plainly it was almost obscene.
“You’re wrong about Alexei,” she said. “He didn’t forbid me from talking to you. He doesn’t control me. He doesn’t keep me here.” She took a breath. “He loves me. And I love him back.”
Billy’s face went white.
“I’m so sorry.” Her voice was shaking now, and her eyes were bright, and she was not composed, not delivering a speech, just a girl trying to be kind in the hardest moment she knew how to be kind in. “I’m sorry that you came all the way here, and I’m sorry about what happened with the score, and I’m sorry your mom had to go through all of that because of...” She faltered. Swallowed. “We were never...I’m sorry. It’s too late. I love Alexei. I always will.”
Billy stood there. His hands at his sides. His face drained of everything.
“But Billy...” She took a step toward him. “I forgive you. For all of it. The secrecy, the text, the score. Everything. I need you to know that. And I need you to go live your life, okay? Find someone who makes you brave. You deserve that.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, and then he nodded, once, slowly, and walked out of the living room without another word.
Zia watched him go. Then she wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist, and she stood in the empty living room, and the expression on her face was not relief.
It was love.
Love for the man she’d married. Love she was about to come and tell him. Love that was waiting for him in the living room with the loveliest smile when he came home and told her there’s been a mistake.
Alexei did not hear any of it.
He was staring at the screen, and the screen was showing him a woman who loved him, who had always loved him, who had been trying to figure out how to let down a boy gently because she was incapable of cruelty even toward the person who had broken her heart.
And he had just offered her a divorce.
The thing that had been humming for her, the deep signal that meant settled, content, home, was screaming now, and the sound it made was not contentment.
It was anguish.
He had done the one thing he had promised never to do.
I am not that boy. I will never hurt you.
His face, reflected in the dark screen, was hollow.
What have I done?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I DIDN’T GO BACK TO him.
I said “excuse me for a moment” and I walked down the hallway, and instead of stopping at the library or the bedroom or the bathroom or any of the places where a woman might go to collect herself before returning to have a conversation about the end of her marriage, I walked straight to the garage.