Relentless Sinner

Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty

Gabriella

I knew something more was wrong from the moment Jaxon got back last night. Of course, I assumed he had a lot to deal with after finding out what happened to Damien and Yuri. But I sensed then that the something else that was wrong had to do with us. I could tell from the way he touched me last night. As if he couldn’t stop touching me. Like he was trying to take as much as he could from me to remember what I feel like.

Now I think I’m right. Something is wrong with us.

We’re sitting opposite each other in the garden. With the bright morning sun beaming down on us, I can see everything clearly now. Including that solemn look on Jaxon’s face.

It’s also never a good sign when someone starts a conversation with the words ‘ we need to talk .’

“What’s going on, Jaxon? You’ve been quiet and acting strange.”

He reaches across and takes the hand with my rings, then he feels over the two bands with the same sort of sentiment he uses every time he touches me.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.” His eyes meet mine, and he gazes into my soul. “A lot of thinking about your safety.”

“I know it’s difficult with my father planning to take me.”

“Yes. But he’s not the only threat I’m worried about.”

“What else is happening?”

“There’s a lot, and now that I’m the Pakhan there’s no telling what could happen in the future.”

A cold chill settles in my stomach. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I’m going to send you to Russia to get you off your father’s radar. When I find him and deal with him, you can come back to New York and go to med school. But… you won’t come back here.”

I drop his hand at the same time my heart cracks, and I stand. I stare at him as shock, disbelief, and confusion consume me.

He rises to his feet, too, towering over me and seeming taller and more foreboding, like a nightmare.

“ No …” The word puffs out of me on the edge of a shaky breath.

“Yes. I’ll buy you a house near campus, and we… we can stay married until you turn twenty-five, then you’ll be able to claim your inheritance.”

“What about you? Don’t you need me for that?” That’s how this started. How we began— as a contract .

Jaxon steps forward and takes my hands. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“It wasn’t about the money. At first, maybe. But I loved you from the first moment I saw you.”

The world around me falls away, swallowed by the weight of the words he just spoke. A deep ache spreads across my heart while my mind scrambles to process his bitter-sweet confession.

“Then don’t let me go.”

“Gabriella, it’s because I love you why I need to let you go. You’re not safe with me. I was selfish for trying to keep you. You would have been safer if I’d let you run from me when you tried to escape.”

“I didn’t want to love you.”

“I didn’t want to love you, either, but it was all I could do. Please understand. If you don’t want to end up like your mother, then you can’t be with me.”

For a moment I’m suspended between disbelief and the searing clutches of reality whispering to me that he’s right.

He’s right, but I don’t want him to be.

The fact that he knew my worries about my mother speaks in droves. I’ve never voiced those fears to him, but I think it’s obvious to assume I’d be worried about that.

The irony of the situation now is that I don’t want to leave him. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to be without him.

He reaches forward and touches my face. “If I could stop being Jaxon Bortsov and give it all up just to have you, I would do it in a heartbeat. But that’s not an option for me. I can’t run away from myself, and I would never want to live some kind of nomad life and stop you from getting your dreams. You don’t have to be part of the Bratva. Or part of me.”

“You’re my husband. What if I want to be with you?”

“I can’t let you do that, Gabriella. Us together… it was just a dream.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. And this is the way it has to be.”

A tear slides down my cheek. Another follows. Then it feels like my soul is weeping.

He dries my tears, but I can barely see him through the blur as more come.

“You’ll go to my father’s house later today. It’s easier to keep an eye on both of you in one place. Then you’ll fly out to Russia tomorrow night.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“You have to. This isn’t up for discussion. My decision is final. This is what I have to do to give you a normal life.”

I don’t answer. What more can I say?

Or do…

Jaxon’s father’s house already felt like a palace to me when I first came here months ago. Now it feels like an entire country, and I can’t believe one man lives here. Today, the grounds are covered with the Creed’s guards, who secure the place like sentinels ready for battle. No one who isn’t supposed to be here will be getting past them. And if they do, I don’t think they’ll live for very long.

I’ve been wandering around the halls and rooms of the house, but now I think I’m lost.

Either they have two Ming vases with the same royal blue peacocks walking around them, or I just passed the same vase twice.

I’ve been here for at least two hours. Eve stayed with me for a little while to help me get settled in and give me the tour.

This home was her first job, so she knew everything. She also knew all the staff, so she introduced me to everyone, and I was grateful that she stayed long enough to have dinner with me.

I haven’t seen Jaxon’s father yet. Apparently, he’s become nocturnal and wary of anyone in the house.

I’m thankful I’m only here until tomorrow night because I’m not sure how to behave around him. Especially knowing what I know about him and the way he treated Jaxon when he was younger.

Usually, I can be sociable with anyone. But I’m not sure I have the strength for it today. My heart is broken beyond repair and my soul feels like it’s waning inside my body.

Emptiness threatens to swallow me whole, and there’s a coldness in my bones that reminds me of the shadow of grief. Losing someone, whether you lose them by death or by other means, is still a loss.

A part of you is still missing and you’re still trying to process what comes next. What to do. What to think. What to be.

This part is painful, and I can get my head around it, but what happens when Jaxon and I truly separate? How will I walk away from this life remembering that he was the only man for me?

I’m at war with myself. Like a tormented spirit who can’t move on.

I’m walking around the house and busying myself because I don’t want to be stuck in my room crying or thinking.

I could call Cora, but I haven’t spoken to her yet about anything. She still thinks I’m in the Hamptons. Jaxon and I were supposed to head home tomorrow.

I’ll call her tomorrow night when I’m enroute to Russia.

Russia.

What am I going to do there?

I guess it’s the last place Dad will think to look for me, so it’s a good idea, but still.

I walk into the large hall where Jaxon was given the role of Pakhan. I remember that day so well and how we were late because we couldn’t get enough of each other.

He’s right. It feels like it was just a dream.

I walk over to the painting I admired that day of rolling hills and a beautiful landscape in the countryside. The painting is so vivid it’s like I could step into it and run across the meadow. I wish I could.

“Jaxon’s mother did that painting,” comes a deep accented voice from behind me.

I turn around and see Jaxon’s father at the door. He wheels himself in and stops next to me, then he gazes at the painting and smiles.

I’ve never been alone with him before, and those words are perhaps the most he’s ever said to me.

“It’s beautiful,” I say, even though he’s still staring at the painting. “She was very talented.”

“She was. I swear she was an angel. She could do everything and anything. Everything she touched was magical.” He sounds like a man forever in love with his wife.

He glances back at me, and I give him a kind smile. “Maybe she was an angel.”

“I think so. That’s probably why she couldn’t stay.” He looks back at the painting and smiles again. “Her name was Rose. This painting is of the landscape near her home. You’ll see it tomorrow.”

“That’s where I’m going?” Another touch of irony. Not even a minute ago, I wished I could get lost in the painting. Now I’m going there for real.

“Yes. It won’t look like this. It may be a winter wonderland, but you’ll like it. There’s a lake not too far from the thicket of trees where I used to take Rose skating. The lake would freeze over by mid-December and you could stay out there for hours. In the summer, it was just as beautiful. We spent the most memorable moments there.” He looks back at me. “No one knows this, but I asked her to marry me long before her father agreed to our union. We were going to run away together if he didn’t. I wanted her to know she was mine.”

His words touch my heart. At the same time, I can’t believe he’s the same cruel person Jaxon told me about. “You must have loved her very much.”

“I still do. But there was a time when I hated her for leaving me. For dying. How foolish when I should have been spending every day treasuring our memories and the two boys she gave me.” He sounds like a forsaken person who knows their days are numbered and they’re trying to make amends. “She was like him. Like Jaxon. She would have done the same thing he did. They sacrifice for the people they love, even if it costs them everything.”

We stare at each other, and a light of understanding passes between us.

“It hurts,” I eventually say.

“Because your love is real.”

I look away from him as tears sting the backs of my eyes. I don’t want to cry again. I don’t want to go down that road. It was hard enough to burst into tears in front of Jaxon. I don’t want to do that in front of his father.

A gentle touch brushes over my hand. I look back at him.

“Come, let’s go to the study, and I’ll show you my library. He said you like reading.”

“I do.”

“I have a first edition collection I think you’ll like. Wuthering Heights is one of them.”

My heart melts, wanting to crumble even more, but I force myself to be strong and accept this small act of kindness that may help me feel better.

“Thank you.”

“Come along now, dear.”

A gust of wind stirs me from a deep sleep. It brushes over my cheeks like long fingers caressing my skin.

Slowly, I open my eyes and see that the window was left open. The window of the study. It takes me a moment to reorient my mind, and I sit up, squinting at the sunshine.

I fell asleep on the chaise, and there’s a blanket spread over me. Jaxon’s father must have put it there.

We read together for hours, and I must have drifted off.

It’s not that bright outside yet, so I assume it’s still early in the morning. I can’t see the clock, and my phone is in my room.

I push to my feet and fix the books, then I make my way out. I need coffee before I can even think of getting through this day.

Actually, I think I’ll get coffee and if it’s as early as I think it is, I’ll go right back to sleep. No point being awake feeling sorry for myself and obsessing over Jaxon.

Not when I’m leaving the country tonight. I don’t want to think about that, either.

I make my way downstairs and notice there’s no one around. I spot the clock in the hallway. It’s nine. Not exactly too early. So, where is everyone?

Belinda, the head maid, talked about the big breakfast she would prepare today and how busy the house is in the mornings. But there doesn’t appear to be anyone around at all. Not even the guards. Now, that is strange.

Maybe they’re in a meeting.

I walk past the hall I was in last night with the painting and see Jaxon’s father inside. He’s sitting in his wheelchair in the same spot we were last night. As if he never left.

I walk in deciding to speak to him. He was nice to me yesterday.

“Good morning, Ilya.” Last night he insisted on me calling him by his first name.

He doesn’t answer me so I walk closer. It’s not until I’m a few paces away that I realize his head is tilted to the side. And he’s completely still.

Panic grips me and I rush up to him to touch his arm. His head dips forward, and he slumps against the side of the chair.

I check him and realize he’s not breathing, and his pulse is incredibly weak.

“Someone help me!” I shout.

My medical skills snap into action and I adjust the wheelchair so I can get him out.

Just then, Eric walks into the room. I’m so glad to see him.

“Eric, I found him like this. Call an ambulance. He’s not breathing.” The words tumble out of my mouth as dread assails me.

Instead of taking out his phone to call an ambulance or going to get help, Eric continues walking leisurely toward me. A smile spreads across his face. It reminds me of a shark before it devours its prey.

“What’s going on?” I stutter when I realize something is very wrong here.

“Nothing. That’s just the thing. Finally, nothing is wrong, and everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Illya won’t be breathing any time soon. I poisoned him,” he explains as simply as if he were talking about the weather.

A stone drops in the pit of my stomach, and I feel heavy, as if lead is flowing through my veins.

“What do you mean, you poisoned him?”

“I gave him a taste of his own medicine. Did he tell you he used to be an expert in poisons? He was good at it. Shame he wasn’t so good with knowing who to trust. Then again, he wouldn’t have thought his best friend would turn on him.” He lets out a dark chuckle that fries my nerves.

“Why would you do this?” I know Jaxon’s father was a monster, but what reason did Eric have to turn on him?

“Part of the plan. And you just became the queen on the chessboard.”

“ Queen ?”

“When I’m Pakhan, I’ll be the king. And you will marry me.”

The blood drains from my body as his words ravage my brain. He’s going to marry me . And be Pakhan. Meaning Jaxon won’t be.

I already feel like I’m withering away, but death wraps its cold fingers around my throat when my father steps into the room.

“Hello, Gabriella. I told you I’d find a way. This is it.”

Oh. My. God.

This was all a setup.

Oh, Jaxon…

We’re both in trouble.