"My second marriage," I muttered, the words feeling like ash on my tongue.
Detective Sanchez, sitting across from me, merely raised an eyebrow. Her pen hovered over her notepad, the red light on the small recorder on the table glowing steadily between us.
"The one to Ivan Volkov?" she prompted, her voice all business.
I nodded, the memory jabbing at me, as fresh and brutal as if it had happened yesterday. "It all started after the crash. After Dwayne... after I woke up."
Sanchez settled in. "Tell me about that."
I let out a shaky breath and stared at the wall behind her, but I wasn't seeing the sterile paint of the interrogation room. I was seeing...
(Flashback)
The first thing I registered was the sound.
The slow, rhythmic crash of ocean waves, so loud they had to be right outside. My eyelids fluttered, heavy as wet sand. My mouth was dry, tasting salt and the sharp, chemical tang of antiseptic.
I forced my eyes open. A white ceiling. A slow, steady beep... beep... beep from a machine just past my shoulder.
I turned my head. My arm. A thin tube was taped to the back of my hand, snaking up to a clear IV bag. Bandages were wrapped so tightly around my ribs, I could barely draw a full breath.
My gaze drifted, trying to make sense of the room. This wasn't a hospital. The furniture was too dark, too rich, the air too clean—smelling of the sea, not bleach.
My throat felt like sandpaper. "Where... where am I?"
A surge of adrenaline made me try to sit up.
The movement sent a dull throb through my head, but as I pushed myself up on my elbows, my eyes focused on the man by the window.
He was standing, watching me. It was him. The man I'd seen an instant before everything went black.
He was real.
My eyes drank him in, desperate for an answer. The long black hair, tied back from a high forehead. The sharp, intelligent eyes that tilted just so, almost like a samurai from one of those old movies. A face too harsh to be handsome, like a Russian heartthrob carved from granite. He wore an open black polo, revealing a torso wrapped in clean white bandages of his own. Even with the dressings, his chest was defined and coiled.
My lips moved on their own, pushing out a name I didn't recognize.
"Ivan?"
The name hung in the air, alien and shocking. And the moment I said it, the pain slammed into me.
Why did I say that? Who is Ivan?
Searing, white-hot agony exploded behind my eyes. It wasn't just the crash this time—not just the shriek of twisting metal. It was other things. Flashes of a different face, a child's laugh, the sting of snow falling... images ramming against a firewall in my memory.
I cried out, my hands flying to my head, clutching my temples as the pain spiked, stealing my breath.
In an instant, he was at my side. "Easy," he said, his voice rough. "Don't move."
He pushed me gently but firmly back against the pillows.
"Call the doctor. Now," he snapped toward the door.
He turned back to me as I gasped, still clutching my head. He covered my hands with his, prying them from my temples and holding them tight. His grip was an anchor.
"Ysabel," he said, his voice rough but steady. "I'm here. You're safe. Don't worry anymore."
As if his words were a command, the spike of pain receded, leaving me shaking and breathless. Just then, the door opened, and the doctor arrived. He silently laid me back down, shined a light in my eyes, and checked the monitors. His voice was a gravelly rumble, directed at Ivan, not me.
"She's stable. No concussion. The memory spike is a reaction to the anesthesia wearing off. She'll be fine."
The "doctor" packed his things, his very presence chilling the room, and left just as quietly. I ignored him, my eyes locked on the man standing by the bed, who still hadn't let go of my hand.
"Where am I?" I asked, my voice stronger now. "I want to see Dwayne."
The man's—Ivan's—expression, which had been tight with what looked like concern, went completely cold. "Dwayne?" he repeated, the name tasting like ash in his mouth. "Dwayne Blackwood. Your husband, right?"
"Yes, my husband. Where is he?" I snapped, yanking my hand from his grasp.
He just stared at me. A long, unreadable silence stretched between us, broken only by the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor. "You really don't remember me, do you, Ysabel?" he asked, his voice suddenly hollow. "It's me. Ivan."
"Ivan who?" My patience snapped. A knot of genuine fear tightened in my chest. "I don't know any Ivan. I don't know you. Who are you people? What do you want? Are you kidnappers?" I scrambled to sit up further, my voice rising with each question.
He didn't even flinch at my accusation. Instead, he gave a short, bitter laugh. "Kidnappers?" He gestured dismissively at the room around us—the silk sheets, the high-tech medical equipment, the opulent furniture. "Do kidnappers usually pull their victims from car bombs and put them in a suite that costs more than your husband's car?"
My breath hitched. "Explosion?" The word was a choked whisper. "You said... a car bomb?"
Ivan settled back into the armchair, and just like that, the brief flash of personal frustration was gone. A cold, analytical focus settled back over him like a shroud.
"This is... complicated," he said, more to himself than to me. He scrubbed a hand over his face, a gesture of pure exhaustion. "You not remembering me... that's a whole other problem." He refocused, his gaze sharpening as if flipping a switch. "Look. For now, let's just say we're a... private security group. After the explosion, you were unconscious. We brought you here."
"Thanks... I guess." My voice dropped, the word feeling small and useless as the real terror began to sink in. "A car bomb?" I whispered again, my throat tight.
His jaw tightened, his expression hardening into granite. "The explosion came from your car." He let the words hang in the air, cold and heavy.
He paused, his eyes locking onto mine, devoid of any warmth. "My people have already investigated. This wasn't an accident, Ysabela. Someone is trying to kill you. And that bomb? It was designed to make absolutely sure they succeeded."
"Kill me?" The words choked out of me, hollow and high-pitched. "Who? Why?"
Panic, cold and sharp, seized my chest. Dwayne. I had to get out. I had to get home. I had to find Dwayne.
I threw my legs over the side of the bed, the room spinning for a second. I tried to stand, a wave of dizziness slamming into me, and I ripped the IV clean out of my arm. A sharp sting. I looked down. Blood was already welling up, dripping fat, dark drops onto the pristine floor.
I ignored it. I took a step.
I didn't get a second one.
A hand shot out, grabbing my arm. It wasn't rough, but the grip was like steel. I looked up into Ivan's intense, unblinking stare. "Stop," he said, his voice unsettlingly level. He didn't release me. With his other hand, he calmly shrugged out of the black polo, revealing the full extent of his own bandages. He pressed the wadded fabric hard against the bleeding puncture and held it there. His movements were quick, efficient, impersonal. "You need to stay put."
"Let go of me! I have to see my husband!"
"My men are still analyzing the device," he continued, as if I hadn't spoken. "It's been almost three days since the explosion."
My head snapped up, the demand dying in my throat. "Three days? I've been here for three days?" The panic surged again, hot and frantic. "Dwayne—does he know I'm alive? He'll be going out of his mind! I have to call him!"
"Right now," Ivan said, his voice dropping, "your husband is the least of your problems. We need to know if it's safe for you out there, and I'm telling you... it's not."
His words sounded almost like... care. But the moment passed. He finally released my arm, his point made, and turned his back to me, walking over to a sleek laptop on a desk.
My eyes drifted past his broad shoulders... to his back. A massive, intricate tattoo of a wolf's head snarled up at me, so detailed it seemed to ripple with the muscles beneath. But it wasn't just the ink that held my gaze. Fresh white bandages were patched across his left shoulder blade, disappearing under his arm.
He'd been close. Close enough to get hit by the blast.
This was real. That explosion was real.
"But... it doesn't make sense," I whispered, the memory suddenly surfacing, sharp and clear. "The only thing that was weird about the car is when I got out, the gauge was nearing empty. It shouldn't have been."
He glanced back over his shoulder, his expression grim. "We figured that out. It was a C4, but a sophisticated rig. It was tied to the fuel line, designed to create a small, steady leak. The charge itself was set to detonate when the tank was completely empty."
He turned to face me fully, his eyes devoid of pity. Pure analysis. "If you hadn't stopped at your house... or pulled into a gas station... the explosion would have been catastrophic. It was a professional hit, Ysabel. Designed to leave nothing behind. Not even a body to bury."
The words landed like body blows. Leave nothing behind.
"But who?" The question ripped out of me, hot and torn. The fragile composure I had left shattered. "Isn't it enough? Isn't what they already did to us enough? My mother is dead... my brothers are in jail... my father is in exile..."
The sobs came then, violent and ugly, ripping up from a place I'd kept locked down for years. I sank to my knees, the strength gone from my legs, the cold floor pressing against my skin.
Then, a presence was in front of me, blocking out the light. Ivan was kneeling, bringing himself down to my level. A warmth radiated from him, something solid and steady in the middle of my chaos.
"I'll find them," he said, his voice low. That strange, jarring familiarity washed over me again, a feeling I couldn't place, a hazy memory just out of reach. "You'll be safe here. I'll make sure of it."
He stayed there for a second, just kneeling in front of me, an unmovable object in my storm. Then, the moment broke. The softness, if it was ever there, vanished.
He was still kneeling, but the coldness returned. He had the laptop on the floor beside him. He picked it up, opened it on his lap, and his fingers moved deftly across the keyboard. He angled the screen into my view.
"Do you recognize any of them?" he asked, his voice all business as he started clicking through a series of grainy images.
I stared numbly. Faces. Cars. A street corner. Another click. A man in a dark suit. Another click. A man in a hat...
"Stop." My voice was a croak. "Go back. That one."
He clicked back. The man in the hat stared out from the screen, his face partially obscured but familiar. Ivan leaned in, his eyes narrowing.
"Who is he?"
The air left my lungs. "That's... that's my father-in-law."