Page 42 of Tarnished Queen

But when I step into the hallway, I see Elise running down the hall towards the other side of the house. She doesn’t stop to look back.

“What is it?” Belle asks. “What’s wrong?”

I turn to her, hands on my hips. “Are you planning to tell your sister about what’s going on here?”

“With you and me?”

“All of it.”

She shakes her head. “Elise has been through enough. I don’t want to overwhelm her with all of this while she’s still recovering from what happened with Xena.”

“Well, I’m afraid that ship has sailed.” I tip my head towards the hallway. “Elise must take after you, because she was eavesdropping in the hallway. And considering how fast she ran away, I’m guessing she overheard everything.”

Belle’s face pales. “Everything?”

“The pregnancy, the marriage, me being a Bratva don.” I nod. “Everything.”

“Shit.Shit.” Belle races past me and down the hallway, running after Elise.

“Ask her to be a flower girl,” I call after her. “That will probably cheer her up.”

Belle is still running after her sister, but she takes the time to throw up a middle finger over her shoulder.

14

BELLE

"Elise, wait!"

I'm running on too much chaos and far too little sleep to be actually, physically running right now. Plus, Elise is fast and this house has way too many hallways. I’m getting dizzy. I have to stop and catch my breath before I straight-up keel over.

By the time I’m good again, there’s no trace of my sister. I'm left checking the mansion room by room for her. I can only hope I don't walk in on anymore former Greek soldiers Nikolai has stashed away somewhere. I don't think I can muster the energy for another knife fight tonight.

I poke my head in room after room, whispering for my sister. I panic that maybe she ran away again. Sleeping on a public bench might not seem so bad after the horror show she witnessed in the kitchen.

But as I’m working my way back to the wing of the house where our rooms are, I realize exactly where Elise is. Where she always goes when she's upset.

The place I taught her to go.

I move through her empty bedroom and stop outside the closet. I lean against the frame and rap my knuckles softly on the wood door.

"Can I come in?"

I hear sniffling. "No."

"I thought the closet was our space?” I say with a choked laugh.

There's a beat before she opens the door and then crawls back to the nest of blankets she created next to the shoe rack. I crouch down and sit next to her, my back against the wall.

For a few minutes, we just sit together. As kids, the closet is where we went when shit was going down between our mom and her boyfriend of the month or whenever her dealer showed up. Usually, it was safest to stay quiet. For a little kid, Elise got really good at it.

When she got older, I kept paper and pencils in a shoe box and we played Tic-Tac-Toe. On good days, we’d stash snacks and water bottles in the closet in case we had to spend a long time hiding out. On bad days, we had each other.

It was never fun, but it was our space. No one could hurt us in the closet.

“Do you want to talk about anything?” I finally ask, breaking the quiet.

“I don’t even know what to say.”

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