SWNOVELS Stolen Heir: Chapter 24
NESSA
The next morning, I wake up to shouting.
The sound is distant, but my eyes pop open all the same.
I’m alone in the bed. Mikolaj is gone.
I don’t feel abandoned. For one thing, he left me in his room, when only a few days ago he chased me out of here in a rage. Things have changed between us.
I have no time to ponder on that, or to bask in pleasurable memories of the night before. I slip out of the bed, finding my panties and the nightgown. That’s ripped past repairing, so I pull on Mikolaj’s discarded shirt instead. It comes down to mid-thigh and smells like him—like cigarettes and mandarin oranges.
I hurry out of the room, down the hallway, but the argument is already finished before I can catch what it’s about. I see the doors of the billiards room thrown open, with Jonas and Andrei stalking off in one direction, and Marcel walking away in another.
I don’t see Mikolaj at all, but I’m guessing he’s still inside.
I hurry down the stairs, barefoot. I’m sure my hair is a tangled mess and I haven’t brushed my teeth. I don’t care. I need to speak with him.
Something’s happening. I can feel the tension in the air.
When I enter the billiards room, Mikolaj is standing with his back to me. He’s holding one of the balls in his hand—the eight ball. Turning it over and over in his long, flexible fingers.
“Do you play pool, Nessa?” he asks me, without turning around.
“No,” I say.
“You win by sinking all your balls before your opponent can do the same. There’s only one way to win. But there are several ways to lose. You can sink his last ball accidentally. Or sink the eight ball too soon. Or sink the eight and the cue ball at the same time.”
He sets the ball down on the felt and turns to look at me.
“Even right at the end, no matter how far ahead you might be, when you think your victory is assured, you can still lose. Sometimes because of the tiniest imperfection in the cloth. Or by your own fault. Because you got distracted.”
I understand the metaphor. But I’m not sure what point he’s trying to make. Am I the distraction? Or am I the prize, if we can make it all the way through the game without losing?
“I heard shouting,” I say. “Was it Jonas?”
Mikolaj sighs.
“Come here,” he says.
I pad over to him. He puts his hands around my waist. Then he lifts me up, sitting me on the edge of the billiards table.
He takes the ankle monitor in his hands. With one swift jerk, he snaps the band. He drops the broken pieces on the floor.
“What are you doing?” I say in surprise.
“It stopped working that night in the garden. When you hit it with a rock,” he says.
“Oh,” I blush. “I didn’t realize that.”
My leg feels strange without it. The skin feels every puff of air. I roll my foot around, experimentally.
“You won’t need it anymore. You’re going home today,” Mikolaj says.
I stare at him, shocked.
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said.”
I can’t read his face. He doesn’t look angry—but he doesn’t look happy, either. His expression is deliberately blank.
“Did I do something wrong?” I ask him.
He lets out an impatient laugh.
“I thought you’d be happy,” he says.
I don’t know if I’m happy. I know that I should be, but all I seem to feel is sick confusion.
“Did you change your mind?” I say.
“About what?”
I look down at my knees, oddly embarrassed.
“About . . . wanting to marry me.”
“No.”
My heart revives, soaring upward again.
Now I do see the conflict on his face. The struggle between what he’s doing, and what he actually wants to do.
“Why are you sending me back, then?” I ask him.
“A show of good faith,” he says. “I’ll send you home. I’ll set up a meeting with your father. We can meet to negotiate. And if you want to come back to me, after that . . .”
He holds up his hand to stop me speaking.
“Don’t say anything now, Nessa. Go home. Then see how you feel.”
He thinks I only agreed last night because I’ve been trapped in his house. Because it was the only way to keep him from murdering my family.
There’s so much more to it than that. But . . . maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s impossible to think clearly when I’m here, a prisoner, with Mikolaj right in front of my face. What he’s offering me is impossibly generous—freedom and a clear head.
That’s why his men are angry. He’s giving up their bargaining piece and getting nothing in return.
“Pack up whatever you want to take,” Mikolaj says. “Marcel will drive you home.”
I feel like I’m made of paper, and I’m tearing in two.
The desire to see my family again is bright and strong.
But I don’t actually want to leave.
Last night was the most incredible experience of my life. It was dark and wild and pleasurable beyond anything I’d ever imagined.
It’s like mainlining heroin. In this house, I’m always intoxicated. I have to get away from it before I can look at anything with a sober mind.
So, I nod, without really wanting to.
“Alright,” I say. “I’ll go and pack.”
Mikolaj turns away again, his shoulders straight and broad, like a barrier I can’t cross.
As I leave the billiards room, I see Jonas and Andrei down the end of the hall, talking in low voices with their heads together. They stop when they see me, Jonas giving me the fakest of fake smiles, and Andrei glaring at me coldly.
I hurry up the stairs to the east wing. I’m relieved to see Klara in my room. Less relieved to see the suitcase she’s laid on my bed.
“I thought you’d like to take some of your new clothes with you,” she says.
“Is Jonas angry that I’m leaving?” I ask her. “He looks pissed.”
“The men will do what Mikolaj says,” Klara tells me. “He’s the boss.”
I’m not so sure. They trusted him completely when he was the cold-hearted mercenary they expected. But even I know that what he’s doing right now isn’t for the good of the Braterstwo. It’s for me.
“I don’t know if I should go,” I tell her.
Klara is throwing things into the suitcase, without her usual perfectionism.
“It’s not up to you,” she tells me flatly. “Mikolaj has decided. And besides, Nessa—it’s not safe for you here.”
Her voice is low, and her body is tense. I realize that whatever Klara might say, she’s frightened. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen, either.
“Is it safe for you?” I ask her.
“Of course it is,” Klara says, her dark eyes steady and firm. “I’m just the maid.”
“You’re not a maid,” I say. “You’re my friend.”
I throw my arms around her and hug her tight. Klara stiffens up for a moment, then relaxes, dropping the bodysuit she was holding so she can hug me back.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” I tell her.
“Thank you for not being a little shit,” she says.
“Most of the time,” I say, remembering all the meals I refused to eat.
“Yes,” she laughs. “Mostly.”
Klara smells nice, like soap and bleach and vanilla. Hugging her is comforting, because she’s so capable and always seems to know what to do.
“I’ll see you again soon,” I tell her.
“I hope so,” she says, without really sounding like she believes it.
I shower and brush my teeth, then put on a pair of clean leggings and a soft, slouchy sweatshirt. I don’t know where my original clothes got to, the jeans and hoodie I was wearing when Jonas snatched me. They disappeared.
Klara blow-dries my hair one last time, pulling it up in a high ponytail.
As she packs my toiletries in the suitcase, I stand at the window, looking down into the garden. I see two of Mikolaj’s men crossing the ground, walking rapidly with their heads down. I recognize one of them—he’s a bouncer at Jungle. The other I’ve never seen before.
I know Mikolaj has more soldiers, other than the ones that live at the house. He doesn’t usually let them come here. Klara said they used to, but nobody was supposed to see me. Or as few people as possible. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore now that I’m leaving.
“Come on,” Klara says. “No sense moping around.”
The house is unusually silent as I descend the curving staircase. The quiet unnerves me. Usually there’s some kind of noise—the clink of plates in the kitchen, or of pool balls in the billiards room. A TV playing somewhere, or somebody laughing.
Marcel is waiting for me by the front door. He’s got the car pulled up—the same Land Rover that brought me here. Or maybe they have a whole fleet. I don’t really know the nuts and bolts of this place, not really.
I thought Mikolaj would be waiting, too.
His absence hurts me. It’s a sharp pang that only seems to grow stronger as Marcel opens the door for me, as I realize he’s really not coming to say goodbye.
What is wrong with me? Why am I blinking back tears when I’m about to go home? I should be skipping over to the car.
Instead I march over like a condemned prisoner, while Marcel puts the suitcase in the trunk. When I look back at the massive old mansion, only Klara is standing in the doorway, arms crossed over the chest of her apron, face solemn.
I press my palm against the glass.
She lifts a hand in farewell.
Then Marcel is driving me away.
It’s a dark and gloomy day. The sky is as flat and gray as a chalkboard, the air biting cold. The wind blows the last of the dried leaves and bits of trash across the street. The season changed. It’s winter now.
I look over at Marcel, his handsome profile and his troubled expression.
“Klara likes you,” I tell him, in Polish.
He gives a little laugh.
“I know,” he says.
He’s silent for a minute, and I don’t think he’s going to talk to me any more than he usually does. Then he seems to change his mind. He actually looks at me, maybe for the first time. I see that his eyes are lighter than I thought—more of a honey color than a deep brown.
“Klara’s father was a drunk. Her uncles are shit,” he says. “Especially Jonas’s father. She only knows one kind of man. But it doesn’t matter. I’m just as stubborn as she is. Persistent, too.”
“Oh,” I say. “That’s good.”
“Yeah.” He smiles and looks back at the road. “I’m not worried.”
We’re getting closer and closer to the Gold Coast. I know these streets. I’ve driven them a hundred times.
I should be getting more excited with every mile. In just a few minutes, I’m going to walk through the doors of my house and see my family. They’re going to be so surprised they just might have a heart attack. In fact, I should probably have the guards at the gate call ahead to warn them.
Instead of my excitement building, my sense of unease is growing. I didn’t like the look Jonas gave me in the hallway. It was just another one of his stupid smirks, but there was something else behind it. A new brand of maliciousness.
“Why did those men come to the house?” I ask Marcel.
“What?” he says, taking one of the last turns before my street.
“I saw one of the bouncers from Jungle in the backyard. And another guy.”
“I dunno,” Marcel says blankly. “I didn’t hear anything about it.”
“Stop the car,” I say.
“What are you—”
“STOP THE CAR!”
Marcel slams on the brakes, pulling over to the side of the road, while a white minivan honks in irritation, and swerves around us.
He looks over at me, the engine still running.
“I’ve got to take you home,” he tells me. “Mikolaj’s orders.”
“Something’s wrong, Marcel. Jonas is going to do something, I know it.”
“He’s just a blowhard,” Marcel says dismissively. “Mikolaj is boss.”
“Please,” I beg him. “Please go back, just for a minute. Or call Miko, at least.”
Marcel looks at me, considering.
“I’ll call him,” he says at last.
He hits the number, holding the phone to his ear with an expression that plainly says he’s only humoring me.
The phone rings without answer.
After the sixth or seventh ring, Marcel’s smile fades and he pulls the car away from the curb.
“Are you going back to check?” I ask him.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll check.”