Page 36 of Porcelain Vows

Then, in my dream, they find me. Two men appear, and I’m disoriented as they drag me to a waiting car, convinced that Aleksei has found me. Except it’s not Aleksei. This is even worse. So much worse.

I’m marched into a warehouse, cold concrete beneath me. Two figures loom ahead— a man and a woman, their features coming into sharp focus.

Gianni. My ex-fiancé. The sight of him brings back a flood of information that feels surreal. I’d loved him once until he cheated on me with the woman beside him. Sofia. Beautiful, cold Sofia. Watching with detached interest, a hint of satisfaction in her icy eyes.

Memories cascade through me now— Uncle Igor’s drunken confession about a sister given up for adoption before I was born. Boyana, who I’d talked to in my head throughout my childhood.

Sofia hates me. “You and that fucking baby got in the way of me and Aleksei and ruined everything, you stupid cunt!” Her words are pure venom, knocking me back a step.

And then Gianni takes it further. “I’ve always wanted to fuck a pregnant woman… with someone watching.”

It’s all too much, too much to comprehend. My head feels like it’s going to implode as I try to take it all in.

The scene dissolves, replaced by pure madness— gunfire, shouting, the smell of blood and torn flesh. Aleksei bursting through the door, his face a mask of cold fury as he sees me. The sickening crack of his fist connecting with Gianni’s jaw. More gunfire. Then, something or someoneappears behind me.

Pain explodes at the back of my head.

Sharp, unforgiving pain.

Darkness takes me.

And through it all, Hannah’s voice echoes on a loop:“Stella, it was organized by Aleksei Tarasov.”

Aleksei Tarasov.

I jolt awake gasping, my pulse pounding, drenched in sweat.

For a moment, I’m disoriented, the luxurious bedroom unfamiliar until reality settles back in. Blackwood Manor. Aleksei’s bed.

The silk sheets cling to my damp skin as I struggle to separate nightmare from memory, the phantom sensation of hands on my body still crawling across my flesh. My throat feels raw, as though I’ve been screaming, but the room remains silent except for my ragged breathing echoing in the darkness.

I turn my head slowly, finding him asleep beside me. In sleep, his face loses its hardness— the sharp angles softened, the perpetual wariness gone. He looks almost vulnerable, one arm still draped possessively across my waist.

My mind is a clusterfuck of confusion. Memories have returned in a flood, overwhelming and undeniable. I remember everything now— who I am, who he is, what brought me here. All of it. The fragments of my past clicking into place like jagged puzzle pieces, each one cutting deeper than the last.

The truth feels like ice water in my veins. My father’s broken body in a black bag. My mother’s vacant eyes when I found her. My brother’s terror, and the things I had to do to save him… All because of the man sleeping peacefully beside me. The man whose bed I’ve shared, whose body I’ve craved, whose child grows inside me.

The monster himself.

I should feel only hatred. Should be desperate to escape. Yet as I look at him, other emotions war within me— desire, connection, even a twisted form of gratitude for how he’s protected me, cared for me, since my injury. The gentleness of his hands when he bathed me, the fierce protectiveness in his eyes when threats emerged, the way his voice softens when he speaks to me in the darkness.

These contradictions tear me apart, making me question everything I thought I knew about good and evil, aboutvengeance and forgiveness. How can I reconcile the man who destroyed my family with the one who makes my heart race when he enters a room? The same hands that orchestrated my father’s death have cradled my face with such tenderness that it makes me ache.

Oh, my God!

What kind of freak am I?

I shift carefully, sitting up against the headboard. My hand moves instinctively to my stomach, feeling our daughter’s gentle movements beneath my palm. She could arrive any day now, Dr. Malhotra said. I have nowhere to go, no plan, no resources. The baby needs stability. Needs a father.

A father who murdered her grandfather.

But did he? Hannah said he was “responsible” —what does that mean, exactly? Did he pull the trigger himself? Order someone else to do it? And why? What possible reason could Aleksei have had to target my father, a simple doctor?

There must be more to this story. There has to be.

The intense energy between us is impossible to ignore, even now. Despite everything I’ve remembered, I cannot deny the magnetic pull I feel toward him. As I watch him sleep, it dawns on me: I am strangely comforted by the fact that I cannot escape him. I should want to run far away from this dangerous man who is so fixated on me. Yet deep down, where my true feelings lie, I don’t want to leave.

Have I lost my mind?

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