Page 69 of Tarnished Queen

I pull both my legs onto the bed and press my palms to my knees. “Okay. Do you remember when Nikolai and I asked you to stay in your room yesterday?”

“Yeah. For a big meeting, right?”

“Right,” I nod. “Except it wasn’t with one of Nikolai’s clients. And it wasn’t Bratva-related. It was about… you.”

She stiffens. “What does that mean?”

“Someone came to see me… about you,” I say. “They have been looking for you. They tracked us from Oklahoma to here.”

“What does that mean, ‘they tracked us’? Am I in danger?”

“No, honey. Nothing like that. You’re safe.” Her face is pale. I reach out and smooth her hair back. Drawing this out is worse, but I don’t know what’s going to happen once the words are out of my mouth. “Really, this could actually be a good thing.”

She shakes her head. “No, it can’t. If it was a good thing, you would have already said it.”

Welp, she isn’t wrong about that.

“It could be a good thing for you,” I clarify. “But it might not be a good thing for me. Because… I lied to you.”

I’m not sure if Elise even realizes she’s doing it, but she shifts away from me. It’s a tiny movement, just a fraction of a degree’s change in her spine. But she pulls away from me and just like that, the pit in my stomach yawns open.

“I did it to protect you,” I tell her. “I know that’s no excuse. I should have told you the truth, but I guess I never thought it would matter. I never expected him to come back and—”

“Never expected who to come back?”

“That’s what I’m getting to. I just thought that—”

“Never expectedwhoto come back, Belle?” she repeats in a low, dangerous monotone.

I suck my cheeks in, trying to find the courage to say what I need to say. But I quickly realize I’ll never find the courage. There’s no point at which I’ll be ready to do this. The only option is to run into it screaming and fearful, braced for disaster.

“Your dad.”

Emotions flicker across her face like a jittery old movie, the screen flashing from one photo to the next while she stays perfectly silent. My blood is thundering through my veins, roaring in my ears as I wait for her to settle on an emotion, to say something. To say anything.

It’s all there. Confusion, worry, shock…

Then, finally, anger.

Elise looks up at me, her green eyes glimmering. “You told me he died.”

“I know,” I admit. “He left when you were so small. I didn’t think he’d ever come back.”

“You told me he died,” she repeats, the words hissing between clenched teeth. “You told me my dad was dead.”

“I’m so sorry, Elise. I guess Mom told him you and I were missing, and he hired a private investigator. I didn’t even know she was still in contact with him.”

“She never talked about him,” Elise says, thinking back. “When I mentioned him once, she said he was dead to her. I thought she was saying he died, but she was… Did she know you lied to me?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I just wanted you to have what I had.”

“You wanted me to have a dead dad?!” she shrieks.

“No! No, not like that. I just—” I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to find the words. “Mom sucked. She was the worst. But at least I had the fantasy of what could have been if my dad had survived. I could imagine what life would have been like if he’d never gotten in that accident and Mom never went off the deep end. I could imagine I had one decent parent, even if he couldn’t be there with me. And I wanted you to have that instead of some deadbeat dad who abandoned you.”

Elise jumps off the bed and turns to me. Her face is red and I can tell she’s about to cry. She keeps swiping her arm across her nose. “You keep talking about whatyouwanted for me. But what about whatIwanted?”

“I know. You’re right. I should have—”

---