I can feel the car closing in on me, its seats turning into octopus tentacles to choke me.

He’s planned everything from the murder to the police to how they never mentioned any detail about me. But he’s been playing his cards, one by each one in a methodical, psychopathic way. He never planned to give me any choice to begin with. He came here with the purpose of turning me into his wife, and I can do nothing to escape this fate.

“Why…” I swallow the tears and the clog in my throat. “Why didn’t you use that threat from the beginning? Why did you give me hope that I could refuse this?”

“It wasn’t my intention to give you hope. And you couldn’t have refused me, Winter. You’re a nobody. A pest everyone stomps on without looking twice. A nameless, forgettable face no one remembers down the line. Be grateful that I’m giving you this offer. Say thank you and go with it.”

I raise my hand and slap him across the face so hard, pain bursts over my palm and shoots down my arm.

A weird type of anger took hold of me at his words, and I needed to relieve it somewhere. This is the only solution my brain came up with.

One that I now realize could cost me my life.

The stranger’s eyes darken and a muscle tics under his stubbled jaw.

I fully expect him to strike—or punch—me back, and I squeeze my trembling lips together in preparation for the impact.

However, his hand loops around my nape and he hauls me over so that my face is mere inches away from his. “The last person who dared to touch me is now buried six feet under.”

I gulp down the lump in my throat. His words alone are suffocating me and digging my grave. I would’ve preferred he hit me instead.

“This is the first and last time you do that. Repeat it and you’ll meet a worse fate than being buried in a grave.”

He releases me with a shove and I stumble back toward the door, my heart beating so loud, I can hear the buzzing in my ears.

“What are you going to do with me?” My voice is small, fearful.

“Whatever I wish.”

My teeth chatter for a different reason than the cold weather, but I can’t resist the feral need to ask the question, “Are you going to hurt me?”

His attention fixes on me, his eyes turning ashen, blank. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not you’re good at following orders.”

I stare up at him with another swallow. I’m not, I’m really not. But I need to start to be, because I don’t want to give this man a reason to hurt me.

Not that he’d need one.

“You’ll be cleaned up before you come to my house.” He gives me a condescending glance, cementing the fact that he does indeed think of me as a pest.

“When will that be?”

“Now.”

“N-now?”

“You have an objection?”

I shake my head once. I want to see Larry again, but that will probably put him in danger with these men, so I opt not to do it. I’ll have opportunities to come see him once I’m…someone else.

That realization hits me deeper than I would’ve anticipated.

I’m going to live as someone else.

I won’t be Winter Cavanaugh anymore.

My thoughts are reinforced when the Russian says, “From now on, you’re Lia Volkov. Wife of Adrian Volkov.”

6

Adrian

I’ve never believed in second chances.

Trusting that someone can change is wishful thinking in ninety-nine percent of cases. It’s a waste of time and energy.

However, there’s always that pesky one percent. The anomaly.

The…deviation of human behavior.

The fact that it’s almost impossible to predict or catch such a moment is what makes it special. Desirable, even.

It’s a sin waiting to be committed.

An untouched rose about to be plucked so it will wither in a place that’s far away from her natural habitat.

And even that one percent can’t be trusted. It’s not that people change of their own volition. They’re forced to by external exertions, by circumstances and tragedies.

In a way, second chances don’t really exist. They’re a myth told once in a while to appease emotionally fragile people so they can look forward to new days instead of spiraling into depression.

Sooner or later, however, they realize such things don’t exist and are hit by a deeper form of depression, a form that will eventually lead to their ruin.

I don’t believe in myths. I’m a man of facts. I may twist them in my favor, I may use a distorted version to reach a certain end, but I do not go after illusions.

And yet, there’s an exception.

An illusion I will pursue.

The woman sitting beside me in the back seat of my car is a myth, herself.

A doppelgänger.

“Do you believe in doppelgängers?” Lia once asked me as we sat down for breakfast.

I raised a brow. “Doppelgängers?”

“Don’t give me that look. They’re real! It’s said that everyone has forty people who look exactly like them. They’re scattered all over time and space, so it’s extremely rare to find your doppelgänger in the same time and place.”

“Lovely.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t believe me.”

“I only said ‘lovely’.”

“You’re being sarcastic.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, you are, Adrian!”

“Hmm. How can you be so sure?”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is, then?”

“Imagine my doppelgänger somewhere in the world right now.” She gave me a soft smile. “If you saw her, you wouldn’t be able to tell us apart.”

“That’s impossible.”

“It is possible. I hope it happens to you.”

“You seem to be the one intent on meeting her. Why don’t you wish for it?”

“No, Adrian! We can’t meet our doppelgängers. The first one who sees the other will die,” she whispered the last words with a spooked tone.

The first one who sees the other will die.

That’s exactly what happened. Lia saw this homeless thing and just disappeared as if she’d never existed.