Page 83 of Embracing the Dark Side

Jolie shook her head. Words weren’t possible. It would make it real, but Jolie wasn’t ready to accept that it happened. She kept asking herself why Adrik had gone so far, but the answer was already there. It was who he was. Adrik was a monster. There was no making excuses. He had always been, and now, there was no pretending he wasn’t.

The pain of that realization was more potent than she wanted, and Jolie ended up sobbing and burying her face in her mother’s arms again. She felt cheated, like she hadbeen given a rare, delicate flower, and before it could bloom, Vincent stomped on it. The potential Adrik and she once had was destroyed, and there was no undoing it.

It was dead.

And so, she mourned the loss of what could never be.

It was Sunday, and though Jolie had spent the last four days in the house, unwilling to step outside even for a breath of fresh air, her mother was determined to bring her to church. “You need it,” she said. “God will heal you.”

Jolie dressed like a slow-moving sloth, standing in front of a mirror. The bruising on her face had healed, but the scar would remain as a constant reminder that she was not the same. She didn’t know how to pretend. The light in her eyes was gone. The color drained from her face and hair. She was a washed-out newspaper sitting in the driveway with tire tracks.

Jolie assumed by now she’d feel better. She thought she’d move on. But she found herself stuck in a loop, reliving the conversations with Adrik. Because the man she met before prison and the man she met after didn’t add up.

It made her believe in a terrible hope. What if she could find the man he used to be?

‘Do you know what a man becomes when he has nothing to lose?’

Tatianna had known what was going to happen. She had warned Jolie, and Jolie in her innocence, thought she could heal Adrik with a hug and kiss. But that wasn’t the kind of love that healed much of anything. She told herself she would fight for him, but she hadn’t realized how difficult it would become and how weak she really was. Loving Adrik wasn’t a rainstorm that she could walk in with just an umbrella and adore the sound of distant thunder. Loving him was a catastrophic hurricane with devastating damage.

Nothing was worth that.

Jolie got out of the car, barely feeling the rays of sunlight on the first day of December. She was ready for winter, if only so she could have a reason to stay indoors.

“Miss Bell.”

Jolie turned to find Agent Mally approaching in a dress that made her awkward. Jolie didn’t depict Mally as feminine, and it showed in the sneakers she wore, the earrings that didn’t match, and the makeup that didn’t fully resonate with her bone structure.

It was biased, Jolie acknowledged. She hated the woman and everything she stood for.

Heather tucked her arm in Jolie’s side and glared, and the silence dragged on as people carried on around them, heading into the church. Children’s laughter and cries disturbed the quiet, and Jolie’s eyes lingered on a little girl with blonde curls as she held her mother’s hand.

“Was there something you wanted, Agent?” Heather started. “Aside from keeping the secrets of my daughter’s whereabouts to yourself?”

Mally bowed her head, perhaps a momentary lapse of guilt, but then she straightened. “It was for your own good. You would have challenged a cartel.”

“Someone has to,” Heather bit back. “Don’t stand here and act like you—”

“Mom,” Jolie interrupted, detaching her arm. “I’ll be in just a minute.”

Heather sighed and nodded. She glared at Mally as she passed.

“I had my reasons—”

“What is your reason for being here, Agent Mally?” Jolie crossed her arms and waited.

The agent shifted in her sneakers. “I wanted to see how you were doing. You don’t look well.”

Jolie scoffed and fell back against her car. “Yes, being kept against your will can do that to you.”

“I told you the Morozovs—”

Jolie pushed forward. “The Morozovs? You think the Morozovs are the problem? I was safe with them! How could you leave me in Vincent’s hold? Why didn’t you get me out?”

“Anything I could do to get you out would have put you in more jeopardy.”

“Bullshit!”

“What did you want me to do?” Mally continued. There was enough guilt on her shoulders already, but she wasn’t about to expose any of that. She was not here to hash out her mistakes. “If I told your parents, and they went to the police, Vincent would have killed them. I had no jurisdiction to get you. I tried, Jolie. I did try. But youwere in the center of a snake pit. I knew your past history. I put faith that Vincent wouldn’t hurt you. Was I wrong?” With Jolie’s eye roll, Mally deduced she wasn’t. “I’m not here for this. I need to find Vincent Ortez.” When Jolie’s body stiffened, Mally knew she was in the right place. “I know Adrik has him. Tell me where he is.”

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