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“Things have been…difficult lately,” I admit, tears filling my eyes. “I’m caught in a tangled web, and I don’t know how to free myself.”
My thoughts drift to Cassius, Nikhil, and Damian—each man holding power over me in different ways. The complexity of my situation threatens to suffocate me, but I try to push it aside as I speak to my sister.
“Sometimes I wonder what you would do if you were here,” I confess, my voice barely audible.
The silence of the cemetery offers no answers, but somehow, just being near Mikayla brings a small measure of comfort.
Tears well up in my eyes, blurring the engraved letters on Mikayla’s headstone. My chest tightens as a sob escapes from deep within me. I can’t hold it back anymore.
“God, I miss you,” I cry out, my voice cracking as the tears cascade down my cheeks and fall onto the earth beside her grave.
My sister’s dead. I can’t see my daughters. I can’t tell Sienna the truth.
I’m surprised I held myself together this long.
As I wipe my tear-streaked face with trembling hands, I steel myself and try to regain my composure. I need to be strong—for my daughters, for myself, and for the memory of my sister.
Slowly, I rise to my feet, steadying myself against the cool, hard stone of her headstone. A gust of wind seems to surround me suddenly, carrying with it the faint scent of cologne, making the hairs on my neck stand on end.
“Annalise,” a deep, familiar voice says from behind me.
Startled, I whirl around to find Damian standing just a few steps away, holding a bouquet of dark red roses.
15
DAMIAN
The last couple of weeks have been far from easy, and the more time I spend away from home, the more irritable I seem to get.
The Popov family have taken my mother, my father, and even Mikayla away from me, and they’re plotting again. They’ve been trying to undermine us for years, planning, playing dirty. Now, it’s my turn to roll the dice.
And this time, the Volkov will win.
I shouldn’t be back home, but the thought of missing the anniversary of Mikayla’s death wasn’t a pleasant one to me.
I’ve told myself a million times over that I shouldn’t care…it’s not like she was my wife, but it doesn’t matter how many times I repeat it. I did care about Mikayla…loved Mikayla. It was her death that made it clear to me that I wouldn’t fall in love again.
To love is to be weak.
And I’ll never be weak again.
“???????, ?????? ????,” I whisper, my voice barely audible above the howling wind. This was supposed to be my reprieve…my time with Mikayla, even if only for a moment.
But, of course, Annalise is ruining it. She shouldn’t even be here. Stephen is supposed to be watching her.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Annalise?” I snap, my patience worn thin.
“Me?!” She scoffs. “What are you doing here? You didn’t even know my sister. She doesn’t need your flowers.”
She doesn’t know how wrong she is. She doesn’t realize that I knew her sister better than she did.
She doesn’t know that I’m the reason her sister is dead.
I can’t stand to look at Annalise today…it hurts too much with how similar she looks to her sister…her sister who’s six feet under, right behind her.
Mikayla would have wanted me to take care of Annalise, but it’s hard to do that. Annalise is nothing like Mikayla.
In one swift motion, I close the distance between us and roughly grab her arm, gripping it tightly enough to bruise. She flinches at the force of my grip but doesn’t resist, allowing me to drag her away from Mikayla’s grave.
