Goddammit, sweetheart, where the hell are you? I held onto the hope that she’d stepped out to gather her thoughts and would be back that night until I reentered our bedroom and took closer stock of what was missing. Her favorite clothes. Her toiletries. That fucking unicorn. My blood roared in my ears. Stella wasn’t gone for the afternoon. Stella was gone, period.
*
After my initial bout of blind panic, I’d pulled myself together and called Brock. Unless Stella gave him the slip, which I doubted, he had to know where she was. It took me less than a minute to get the location out of him. She was safe, and he’d simply thought she was visiting a friend. I would’ve torn him a new one for such an idiotic assumption—who the fuck visited their friend with a fucking stuffed unicorn?—if I hadn’t been so focused on getting to Stella as soon as possible. Of course, she had to choose the one place where I couldn’t easily waltz in and demand to see her. “Volkov!” I banged on the door. “Open the fucking door!” I’d been knocking and ringing the doorbell for the past five minutes, and I’d used up all my patience. I’d done plenty of Alex’s unsavory tech work over the years. I had enough dirt on him to bury him alive, and if he didn’t answer within the next thirty seconds— The door finally swung open. Instead of Alex’s cold green eyes, I found myself staring at five feet five inches of thinly veiled suspicion.
“Oh. It’s you.” A frown marred Ava’s normally friendly face when she saw me. “You’re interrupting our lunch.” “I want to talk to her.” “I don’t know who you’re talking about.” My back teeth clenched. “Stella.” Ava’s hand tightened around the doorknob. She stood squarely in the entrance, barring me from entering. “She’s not here.” “That’s fucking bullshit. I know she’s here.”
I ditched the softer approach. “Step aside, Ava, or I’ll—” “Careful how you finish that sentence, Harper.” Alex appeared beside his fiancée, his eyes like chips of jade-colored ice as they roved over my disheveled appearance. Loosened tie, no jacket, hair rumpled from the number of times I’d raked my fingers through it in frustration. It was the most unkempt I’d looked since I hit damn puberty, but I didn’t care. I only cared about one thing, and that was seeing Stella. My jaw
flexed. “I’m not leaving until I see her.” I glared at Alex, who stared back with a bored expression. He didn’t give two shits about other people’s drama unless it directly involved Ava, but he knew how stubborn I was. I meant what I said. I’d camp out in the damn hallway until I could talk to Stella. I just needed to explain. She’ll understand. She had to. Alex flicked a glance at Ava, who shook her head. “No way. You heard what he did! He—” She stopped, obviously realizing she messed up. The confirmation that Stella was inside renewed my fire. “Stella!” I shouted. Desperation and something heavier, more foreign settled in my chest. Fear. Not fear that Stella was in physical danger, but fear that I might take a big shit and not see her and that I’d lose her forever. “Just let me talk to you.” I didn’t even know if she could hear me, but I had to try. “I—”“Go. Away.” Ava pushed against my chest. For someone so small, she was surprisingly strong. “She doesn’t want to see you.” “Guys, it’s fine.” We all froze at the sound of Stella’s voice. My eyes searched over Alex’s shoulder until they found her. She stood in the middle of the living room, her face pale. She didn’t look at me as she spoke to Ava. “Let him in.”
“But Stel, what if he—” “I just want to get this over with,” Stella said. “He won’t do anything when you guys are right there.” A lance of pain speared through my heart. “I would never hurt you.”
She didn’t acknowledge me. Ava released the doorknob and stepped aside with obvious reluctance. I immediately pushed past her and ignored her and Alex’s warning stares as I followed Stella deeper into the apartment. She’d started walking before I fully entered, but I kept up with her easily until we reached what must’ve been her room. Her overnight bag sat on the floor next to the unicorn, and her clothes covered the bed. My stomach tightened at the sight.
They shouldn’t be here. She belonged with me, in my house, not in her friend’s fucking guest room. Stella closed the door and finally faced me. Now that I was closer, I could see the red rimming her eyes and coloring her nose. The thought that I was responsible for her tears made my heart ache in the most painful way. “Stella…”“Don’t.” She hugged her arms around her waist. “I just want to know one thing. Are you the stalker?” Her voice wavered on the last word. I blanched. “No.” I’d done plenty of morally questionable and downright awful things in my life, but I would never terrify her like that. “Then why do you have those files on me?” Her chin wobbled.
“We met last year, but those pictures are from years ago. The information on me, my friends, my family…what possible reason could you have to dig that deep?” The turquoise ring weighed heavy in my pocket. A symbol of the secrets I’d kept and the lies I’d told. “Because the first time I saw you wasn’t the day you signed the lease at the Mirage,” I said. “It was five years ago.”
Stella’s mouth parted in shock. The truth emerged in bits and pieces after years of being hidden.
“I was sitting outside a cafe in Hazelburg. You were walking past when someone grabbed your purse and ran.” I hadn’t cared about such a minor theft, but I’d been intrigued enough to stay and watch the scene unfold. “I remember that day,” Stella said quietly. “It was my senior year of college. I was on my way home from class.” I nodded. “A passerby caught the kid, the police came, and that should’ve been it. But when you found out he stole your purse because he needed the money for food, you gave him all the cash you’d had on hand instead of pressing charges.”
“Are you sure?” The police officer looked at the brunette like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You want to give him the money?” “Yes.” She glanced at the surly teen. He glared back at her, but I spotted the tiniest glint of hope in his eyes. “The cash means more to him than to me.” “He tried to steal from you.” The officer sounded as baffled as I felt. I leaned against a
nearby building and scrolled through my phone, but all of my attention was focused on the interaction playing out less than ten feet away. I didn’t know what’d compelled me to stick around after the kid had been caught, but I was glad I had. I’d been bored all day, but this…this was interesting. Why the fuck would someone give money to the person who’d tried to rob them? “Yes, I know,” the brunette said patiently. “But he’s just a kid, and he needs the cash.
Charges aren’t necessary.” The officer shook his head. “It’s your money.” I tuned him out as he closed out the case and examined the brunette, fascinated. I’d heard her give her name when the police first arrived. Stella Alonso. She looked like she was in her early twenties, with curly dark hair, green eyes, and a quick, warm smile. She was gorgeous, but that wasn’t what enthralled me. It was the gentleness with which she spoke. The absurdity of her action. The unwavering optimism in her eyes even when an attempted robbery in broad daylight should’ve shaken her faith in humanity. The way she’d reacted hadn’t been at all what I’d expected. If there was one thing that never failed to spark my interest, it was people who subverted my expectations. A smile curved my lips for the first time that day. Eventually, the officer left after giving the teen a stern warning. The kid lingered like he wanted to say something. He must’ve thought better of it because he soon scampered off without a word, not even a thank you. Stella didn’t appear perturbed. She simply hiked her bag higher on her shoulder and walked away like nothing had happened. As she did, something slipped off her hand. I didn’t call after her to alert her to the missing item. Instead, I waited until she disappeared around the corner before I walked over and retrieved the turquoise ring from the ground.