Page 134 of Raven

I’m losing my mind. I close my eyes and try to imagine what Maddy looks like on the other side of the door. Is she still wearing a dress? She looked like Electra at Marlow’s, sexy hips and high heels, that slick ponytail and killer eyes. I can see how she used to be the life of every party.

When I hear her footsteps moving away from the door and disappearing into the night, I feel relief and disappointment at the same time.

When the silence behind my door is definite, I check her GPS tracker. In two minutes, she is at home. Good. She has her Ayana bracelet on. Good girl.

I miss Maddy’s voice and smile, they way her fingers felt tangled in my hair, the way she whispered, “Rave,” the sound of it laced with desire and something else I imagined was affection when she forgot that I was the man who forced his way into her bed.

I just fucking miss her, and the feeling makes me want to roar like a wild animal.

But she is home. She is safe. And I intend to check on her every fucking day to make sure of it.

I tried to do right by Emily. She ended up dead. I can’t fail with another person. And I just hope that the deal I made with Tsariuk will work out for Maddy.

With time, she will understand.

With time, she will forgive me.

I just hope that time comes, even if we are not anywhere near each other.

51

MADDY

The pool water is azure under the sunbeams, breaking out of the heavy clouds.

Ty’s villa is quiet, the house music seeping through the speakers. It’s only a handful of us, just a regular chill day. Three days since Carnage. Another party. I’m taking more days off than I’ve had since I moved to the Westside. Being around people helps me not to think about Raven.

The hurricane season is moving away. Everything seems to spring back to life.

Except I feel like I’m in the middle of a storm.

Dad calls every day. My head spins at the bizarre sense of normalcy. It’s like we’ve never stopped talking. The first conversation we had, at Archer’s office, I let myself cry in front of him. Hearing Russian, speaking Russian for the first time in two years felt surreal.

Dad is cautious, for the first time in my life. He is so diplomatic, it makes me wonder what Raven and Archer said to him before the first time we talked.

“You can stay,” he said then. “But I have conditions.”

“Do you, Dad?” I smirked through tears.

“Mila, listen to me, please.” He even raised his palms in the air in surrender. “I’m not pressuring you into anything, but I need you to be safe.”

“I was safe. Until you started looking for me.”

“You were safe because I found you. Long before you knew it. And I took my time.”

“Why?”

“Because I tried to figure out what went wrong and why you did what you did.”

I laughed then, wiping my tears. “Really? You had to take time to figure that out?”

“I know, it was about your future engagement.”

“Oh, it was a little bit more than that, Dad.”

But he is still so compliant every time he calls, it’s suspicious, it’s unnerving, and it reminds me of how he used to be when I was younger—loving. While he used to break other people’s lives, mine was the most important.

I sit on a sunbed and look through the pictures on my phone. Dad sent dozens. Our family friends, acquaintances, him, our homes and summer villas in Russia destroyed during the bombings, the new ones all over the world, including Venezuela where he spends a lot of his time on his oil company.

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