Yelsing clears his throat awkwardly. “Well, I suppose this has all been one big misunderstanding…”

“No!” Geneva shrieks. “No, it hasn’t been!”

“I apologize for all the trouble, officers,” Kolya intervenes, stepping forward with the self-assured grace of a politician. “But as you can probably tell, my future sister-in-law isn’t my biggest fan.”

A few of the officers actually laugh.

Smirking, he continues. “I can’t blame her for thinking that I’m not good enough for her sister, and I won’t blame you all for coming here tonight and doing your jobs. But I do need to get my fiancée inside now. She needs a warm shower and some dry clothes.”

Yelsing nods. “Of course, Mr. Uvarov. I’m very sorry for all the trouble.”

“Not at all,” Kolya says, flashing the small group of cops a charming smile. “Just doing your duty. I understand. Have a nice evening.”

Then the cops pile into two cars and head back off down the winding drive that leads to the main road. The whole time, Geneva stares off after them, as though she’s trying to pull them back with just the pure force of her will.

I take a deep breath. “Genny…”

She twists around, her eyes wide with fury. “I cannot believe you just did that.”

“Me?” I balk. “What about what you just did?”

“I was trying to protect you!”

“Well, stop!”

The words wrench out of me, a ticking time bomb that I didn’t know I was carrying around inside my chest this whole time. She’s stunned, but I still have more to say.

“I wish everyone would just stop trying to fucking protect me. At this point, it’s starting to feel like code. Because what you’re really saying is that you want to use me.”

“June, I—”

“I confided in you,” I interrupt. “I told you the truth because I thought I could trust you. And what did you do? You went running to Ravil. The one person I told you not to go to.”

“Because I knew you were in over your head and I knew Ravil was intent on getting you out of it! And what did your fucking fiancé do about it? He killed him for it.” She spits the words like they’re poison.

“Because Ravil was planning on killing me,” I say softly.

“You’re crazy. He wasn’t planning anything of the sort.”

“C’mon, Gen,” I sigh. “I was there. After you disappeared from the bridal suite, his goons came and took me. They tranquilized me and they fucking took me. And where were you the whole time?”

She swallows hard. “R-Ravil told me to… to go home,” she admits quietly. “He told me that he would get the situation under control and contact me that evening. But when he didn’t… I went to his house and it was clear something was wrong. I just assumed—I knew—Kolya did it. He had to have done it.”

I shake my head. “Ravil sent you home because he wanted to get you out of the way. He locked me up in his room and tried to force me to write a suicide letter. He was going to kill me, Geneva. He was going to kill me because you told him that I was carrying Adrian’s baby, not Kolya’s. And that meant I didn’t matter anymore.”