Page 323 of Hateful Games

He’ll do the same once Danish and Nova give in to his demands.

I won’t let it come to that.

As soon as I’ve succeeded in my mission, I’ll go to the police and confess all the abuse I’ve suffered at their hands. I am done hiding and letting fear rule me.

This is my chance to kill two birds with one stone.

Uncle’s smugness of returning will be gone in a cloud of smoke. I’ll finally get my revenge and bury the last of my demons. The scars he inflicted. He will spend the rest of his life behind bars and count the days till his last dying breath.

So will my father.

I can finally be with Nova again after I confess the truth and beg him for forgiveness.

“Miss, we’re here.”

The polite voice of the driver interrupts my train of thought. The house I shared with Nova looms ahead. After asking the driver to wait until I return to go back, which he agrees to, I walk on shaky legs to the gates.

“Mrs. D’Cruz?” calls out the nightshift guard perched in his small office. “Is that you?”

“Yes.” My tone is scratchy and low. “Let me in.”

“But Mr. D’Cruz isn’t here. Hasn’t been in the last three days.”

I stop in my tracks. “Where is he staying?”

“In his apartment in the city.”

Surprise flickers because I didn’t know he had one. “Can you tell me the address?”

“Of course.”

He recites it and I make my way back to the cab driver. We’re back on the road and it takes another two hours before I reach the high-rise complex. The doorman recognizes who I am and quietly lets me pass. His expression sympathetic. The private elevator, leading straight to the penthouse, climbs at the slowest pace, or that’s how it feels.

Every second feeling like a lifetime.

I have no idea what version of Nova I’ll be finding. We’re once again standing on the opposite sides. Two parallel lines never meant to collide, unless we want to ruin those around us and ourselves.

Haven’t I already accomplished that?

Will he even believe a word I say now?

The elevator halts and the doors part.

Darkness. Deafening silence. Cold.

I’m hit by three at once as I cross the threshold. The farther I go, the colder the walls become, along with the chill night air coming in from all the windows and doors being left wide open. Sparse furniture decorates the first living room I enter.

Nova isn’t here but his scent wafts in the space and I inhale, instantly feeling home. My lungs finally breathing again. I stride past the open-style dining and kitchen area to a second living room that leads to the balcony. The lights are off with the moonlight streaming in.

In front of the open sliding glass door, stands a disheveled Nova in a black dress shirt and pants. The funeral clothes he wore yesterday as he buried his mother, alongside his father and close relatives. Barefoot and a burning cigarette hanging from his left hand. That’s not what crushes my already broken heart, though.

In his other hand is a half-empty bottle of whiskey.

He’s drinking.

My Nova abhors that stuff yet the evidence is before my eyes. I’m half to blame for reducing him to touching alcohol. He doesn’t even hear me as his hand lifts, ready for another sip, when my brain catapults me into action.

“No,” I yell and cross the room. Wrenching the bottle from his grip, I throw it far away. The loud crunching noise brings his focus to my proximity. Nothing shifts in his dead expression except the glistening shine of dry tears on his eyelashes. Dark circles make home underneath them.

---