Page 43 of The Silent Princess

Begging. I have never, ever begged a woman in my life.

Ella: I’ll see what I can do. I promise.

I imagine her little hands typing away, unsure of who the monster she is speaking to really is and whether she can truly trust me. And still, she keeps writing. Bold and brave.

Ella: Tristan?

Me: Yes, Ella.

Ella: I liked being with you last night.

I take a deep breath, towering over my city; no amount of mergers or acquisitions is capable of matching the effect her few words just had on me.

Me: I liked it very much too.

“All set,” Nate rasps, sliding his phone into his suit and crossing his arms. “So, what do you want to do?” I drift away, running my fingers over my chin, another move playing in my head. Knight takes king. Think. Think. Sauntering to the sailboat photograph, the black-and-white one that seems, today, to show more ocean than boat. I slide it to the right and unlock the secure vault.

“Cole wants war. Until now, we have been at each other’s throats, playing battle after battle. It never became this…personal,” I state, glancing at my reddened chess set. A flash of Ella covered in the same substance cuts through me. Stop. This is not happening. Ella and I are not…official. Yet. Yet. There are things in life that are not worth sacrificing, and I have the disturbing feeling that Ella is one of them. Finding the file I was looking for, I close the vault and place the pile of paper on my desk.

“Money laundering?” Nate asks, surely building his speculation on the considerable amount of evidence and dirt we have gathered on the Vodianovs for years.

“The worst kind.”

“You’re sure you want to go there?”

“It’s time, Nate. We have waited long enough.”

“I’m just saying, once we get there, there is no going back.”

“Is that not the whole purpose?”

“I know… I know.”

He looks down at the first sheet of paper, Cole’s face photographed as he walks through the streets of Westhaven at night.

“I have already set in motion all the moves to make his enterprise collapse. Now we need his name to fall into the abyss.”

“How far are we going?”

“We make it public.”

“You would want to spend the rest of your life in jail to avenge our father?”

“Who is talking about jail, Nate?”

“Instinct.” I shake my head, hands in my pockets, circling the desk until I face the bloody mess on the table.

“He has been laundering money and making people disappear for high-profile public figures for years. Knowing this,” I explain, pointing at the files, “the amount of leverage it gives us…”

“And risk.” Which is why, until now, I’ve kept this option away from the realm of possibilities.

“There’s a lot of people who would not want things dragged into the light, people who may take care of him before we even do.”

“What if there is backlash, and they find a way to spin everything on us? You could spend the rest of your life in jail, or worse.”

“Not too thrilled to lead the ship, I see.”

“Maddie needs me.” An appreciable flinch of his shoulder betrays his care for his daughter and the obvious weight of responsibility neither of us can ignore. Getting caught is not a possibility.