Page 24 of Thorns of Lust
Straightening my spine, I pushed the handle and entered. Surprise washed over me. The room was clean, only a handful of computers and laptops stretched over a large U-shaped desk.
“What the heck?” I murmured. “Where is everything?”
I could have sworn this room had more electronics. It was almost like things had been taken out of here but that was impossible. Yan and Yuri wouldn’t touch anything inside this place without running it by me. Nobody else had access to the penthouse. My heart fluttered in my chest. I’d heard footsteps in the night. Was someone stealing shit at night? I shook my head. No, it couldn’t be. Nobody but Adrian and I had the key to the penthouse.
Maybe I’d finally just lost my mind.
As I moved through the space, my eyes darted here and there, almost expecting all those missing electronics to appear out of thin air.
When did he empty out this room?I wondered.
He’d never said anything about clearing it out. I’d neverseenhim carry anything of it out. Padding across the room, I sat down at the laptop he always walked around with as if it was a part of him. Powering it up, I waited for the welcome page and instead was greeted by a logo.
A red rose wrapped in thorns.
“What the fuck is it with these roses and thorns?” I mumbled softly. There had to be a reason why it kept coming up. I still didn’t know who sent me that gift on Christmas day. It had arrived with such a strange note, one I’d yet to decipher.
Moving the mouse around, I clicked on the logo and instantly a password prompt came up.
I stared at the logo and my mind whispered those strange two words that came with the jewelry. Could the password really be that simple?
I ran to my bathroom, the box still sitting in the same spot where I’d left it. I opened it, grabbed the note along with the box, and rushed back, murmuring the words.
“It sounds like goddamn Latin,” I murmured to myself. I bet Bella would know. She had to take Latin class as part of her degree. I’d ask her later.
Once back in the gadget room, I sat in front of the screen. My heart thundered as I typed letters into the password field.Memento mori.
“Welcome.” A digital voice had me jumping out of my skin.
Rolling my shoulders, I put my palm over the mouse and started navigating. One file was just a list of codes that made no sense to me. I moved onto the next file. That one contained a list of what looked to be IP addresses. I wasn’t techy enough to be able to trace them so I moved onto the next folder. It included a long list of MP4 video files.
A name caught my eyes.Tatiana’s mother.
I told myself not to click it, but in the end, curiosity got the best of me. I clicked on it and images played. Voices shouted. I watched my mother, who I never knew, and Papa, who I barely knew, argue and fight. She threw dishes at him. Then another. Her screams pierced the air, even through the screen.
I held my breath as she stormed out of there, slamming a few more things onto the marble floor. My father headed in the opposite direction, unfazed by her tantrum. Shattered pieces flew everywhere, and from the looks of it, Mother stepped on some of it. She rushed into a room, then came out with a baby in her arms.
My eyes flickered to the corner of the video, reflecting the date. It was right after I was born. I held my breath, seeing my mother hold me. I didn’t have a single picture of myself with her and something about seeing it on this video made my heart warm.
She must have drawn comfort from holding me.
She climbed another set of stairs, then started pacing. She almost seemed hysterical. Crazy. She leaned against the rail, almost dropping me and a loud screech filled the room. Then as if the volume was turned up, the screaming became louder. The baby… I was screaming at the top of my lungs.
Mother kept muttering something and I leaned closer.
“He doesn’t love me. I’ll never be enough. He doesn’t love me. I’ll never be enough.”
She was talking about Papa. She was right. He didn’t love her. But what she did was wrong. My spine steeled seeing little Sasha appear.
“Mama,” he called out and her pacing stopped. Honestly, she looked like a crazy woman. He should stay away from her.
“Sasha, get back to your room.” Not surprisingly, he remained in his spot. “You look at me with your father’s eyes. I can see him in you.”
The hate in her voice was unmistakable and my heart clenched for my brother. I loved all my brothers, but I was closest with Sasha. Maybe because we were both stubborn. Or maybe because we cooked up things to drive our big brother crazy.
“Where’s Papa?” Sasha asked her, his voice so different from the man I knew today.
“You’re always going on about Papa. He doesn’t love you,” she snickered, shuffling the baby roughly between her arms. “He doesn’t love me. I don’t love you. Round and round we go.”
