Cage of Ice and Echoes, page 34
I love this for them.
I love that I get to experience their new freedom.
When the elevator reaches the top floor and the doors open, Leo steps out first with an exhale of relief. Kody follows, his posture relaxing as he wanders into the expansive hallway.
Monty seems oblivious to their discomfort, or perhaps he’s chosen to ignore it, focused on leading us to our destination.
The soft hum of the city behind sealed windows follows us to the door at the end of the hall. As it swings open, Melanie greets us with a practiced smile, her presence immediately grounding, despite the undercurrent of dread.
The vibe in the air reminds me of the uncomfortable silence at a funeral. No one knows how to handle the heaviness of so many choking emotions.
“Welcome.” Melanie steps aside to allow us entrance. “Please, come in and make yourselves comfortable.”
Her gesture sweeps us into a private room designed to take the edge off formal meetings. A plush couch beckons invitingly, flanked by multiple chairs, all arranged to face a large TV mounted on the wall.
As we file in, Melanie nods at the wet bar nestled in an alcove. “Can I get anyone something to drink?”
Kody and Leo exchange a look before Leo says, “Vodka for us.”
“Bourbon for Frankie and me.” Monty lowers into a chair and straightens his suit jacket.
Leo stiffens. “You assume to still know her?”
Monty pauses, his eyes shifting to Leo, glinting with something. “You’re right,” he concedes, turning back to me with a more open posture. “What would you like, Frankie?”
The room holds its breath.
“Bourbon.” I hold his stare, giving him this small victory.
His nod, subtle but meaningful, signals his effort to respect and recalibrate the changing dynamics between us.
Melanie steps away to procure the drinks as Kody and Leo join me on the couch, bracketing me.
My stomach knots, and my hands grow damp. I rub them on my jeans. “I’m nervous.”
Leo grips my fingers, pulling them onto his lap.
Monty turns to me, his expression softening. “I know this is hard, and it’s okay to be nervous. But remember, you’re incredibly strong. You’ve shown that time and time again.”
“Thank you.” I tip into his beautiful blue eyes and before I get lost there, I quickly look away.
“Here we are.” Melanie distributes the drinks and lowers into the other chair. “I’ve reviewed the files on the thumb drive and watched the video. There’s nothing graphic, but given everything this man has put you through, I know it won’t be easy to watch. It’s…disturbing.”
My throat dries, and I take a sip of the bourbon, savoring the heat, the flavor.
“If you’re ready,” Melanie says, “I think we should start with the DNA results.” At our nods, she removes a stack of papers from a folder on the coffee table. “I printed these documents off the files on the thumb drive. Denver had all the tests run through the same company. He provided the DNA samples to the company, and we matched them to the samples you provided. Everything has been checked and double-checked. It’s all accurate. You can read through the results, or I can just tell you.”
“Just tell us.” Leo drains his vodka and sets the empty glass aside. “Start with Wolf since we know that one.”
Bees swarm my stomach.
“Wolfson Strakh.” Melanie places a paper on the table, turning it to face us. “He is the biological son of Gretchen Stolz and Montgomery Loshad Strakh.”
For a heartbeat, Monty is utterly still. Then, slowly, the initial shock gives way, and the hand, which had been resting on his knee, clenches into a fist as if in an attempt to grasp the enormity of this confirmation.
“You would’ve loved him.” My heart aches. “He was so smart and talented and funny.”
“You wrote a lot about him.” Monty swallows. “But I would love to hear more stories.”
“Of course.” I squeeze the circulation out of Leo’s hand, and he squeezes right back.
Kody stares at the paper on the table, reading and rereading the test results.
I glance at it, too, my gaze catching on the father’s name. “Montgomery Loshad Strakh?” I find Monty’s hard eyes. “That’s your given name?”
“Yeah.”
“Do mine next.” Kody shifts to the edge of the seat, his muscles taut.
I hold out my free hand, and he grabs it, linking the three of us together.
“Kodiak Strakh.” Melanie’s voice hangs in the weighted silence. “You are the biological son of Kaya Knowles and Rurik Strakh. This also confirms that Monty and Denver are your half-brothers.”
The room becomes a vacuum of stunned silence, every sound sucked away, leaving only the echo of Melanie’s words.
My stomach drops as the revelation sinks in.
“Did you know?” Kody’s gaze slams into Monty, raging with shock and confusion. “Did your father rape my mother?”
“Kody…” Monty shakes his head, looking horrified. “No. I had no idea. My father took her in, treated her like a daughter…” He chokes. “Oh, God. I didn’t know. How did I not fucking know? She was young. Only twenty-one. And my father…It must be a sickness. It’s in the family. This…this runs in the fucking family.”
This is a hereditary disease.
“Monty, no.” I lean over Kody’s lap, capturing Monty’s attention. “You are not your father. You are not them. Do you hear me?”
Ignoring me, he stares at Kody, his expression fraught with turmoil. “I’m sorry. If I’d known my father touched Kaya in that way, I would’ve killed him myself…” His eyes widen. “Fuck. Denver did it. He killed him. He found out about Kaya and tampered with Rurik’s plane.”
“He says as much in the video.” Melanie nods.
Leo’s brows furrow in pain for Kody as he reaches across me and clutches Kody’s arm, gripping hard in silent support.
Kody is Monty’s half-brother.
And Denver’s half-brother.
When Denver told us there was a third brother, he could’ve told Kody right then, to his face, that Kody was that brother. Instead, he tossed him a riddle because he couldn’t say it. The fucking coward. He raped his own goddamn brother and couldn’t admit it, not even on his last breath.
I shake at the thought of it. I shake so hard that Leo pulls me against his side and strokes my hair.
“I’m okay.” I measure my breaths. “Just really fucking mad.”
“Me, too.” Leo looks at Melanie. “Let’s get this over with.”
The room seems to contract around us as Melanie places the final paper on the table. “Leonid Strakh. You are the biological son of Tia Langston and Denver Yastreb Strakh.”
“What?” Monty jumps from the chair and grabs the paper, scanning the results.
“Tia Langston?” Leo releases me, standing, too. “My mother is Helena Weiss.”
Denver is Leo’s father. I don’t think that has hit Leo yet.
Denver raped his own biological son.
My insides lurch. I’m going to be sick.
“Tia Langston.” Monty gulps down the last of his bourbon and paces through the room. “Her father was Paul Langston, our groundskeeper. He lived in a guest house on our property on Kodiak Island.” He groans. “He died in a car accident when Tia was young. Christ, she was…”
“Fifteen,” Melanie says and turns to Leo. “She was fifteen when she gave birth to you in Fairbanks. She named you Brennan. Brennan Langston.”
“Who is Helena Weiss?” I pinch the bridge of my nose. I’m so confused.
“Tia Langston changed her name to Helena Weiss.” Melanie tucks a loose lock of hair into her bun. “Denver explains it in the video, and we fact-checked it. I can walk you through the details or—”
“Let’s watch the fucking video.” Leo eases back into the couch with a casual sprawl, as if the identity of his father hasn’t phased him in the slightest.
I see through the facade. His entire foundation has been violently and irreparably rocked.
“Leo.” I tuck myself into his side and rest my head on his pounding chest. “It’s okay not to be okay about this. I’m here.”
“I know.” He grinds his teeth.
Kody’s arm stretches behind me along the back of the couch, his hand landing on Leo’s nape.
My mind spins as I redefine our relationships and dynamics.
Monty and Kody are half-brothers.
Leo and Wolf are cousins.
Monty and Kody are Leo’s uncles.
Kody is four years younger than Leo, and he is Leo’s uncle.
I don’t even want to contemplate Denver’s relationship with them. I’ll dwell on that later when I’m ready to have a good cry.
Monty returns to his chair, his nostrils flaring. “Play the video.”
“Before we jump into it…” Melanie powers on the TV screen. “There were a few other documents on the thumb drive. One was a digital copy of the flight manual with an instructional training guide on flying the Turbo Beaver. The other was a step-by-step operational handbook on the hydroelectric generator.”
“Of course, there was,” Kody snarls.
“Psycho fucking prick.” Leo runs a shaky hand through my hair.
I release a sad breath. “He included the instructions because, in his sick, fucked-up way, he wanted you to survive.”
“I wish he were alive right now so I could tell him how I feel about that.” Leo scowls at Melanie. “Anything else? Like bank account information or a last will and testament?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
My heart sinks.
With that, Melanie returns to her chair and presses play.
The room darkens, the focus shifting to the screen where the video comes to life.
There, displayed with disarming familiarity, is Denver, lounging with the ease of an arrogant monster, wearing the smile that makes me quake with murderous rage.
But my heart stops at the sight of the couch he occupies, a piece of furniture deeply embedded in my memories.
I handpicked it when Monty and I got married.
It’s the very couch in the main room of the house I shared with Monty in Sitka.
My ears ring. My entire body shudders.
That couch and those surroundings are part of a world I shared with Monty, a world that now feels like a distant dream.
A dream that Denver violated.
Seeing him there, in a setting so personal and intimate, tunnels ice through my veins.
I glance at Monty, wondering if he feels the invasion as viscerally as I do.
His face is a stone wall, his gaze fixed on the screen, but I sense his tension. His eyes, a barometer of his temper, flash with the fury building beneath his composure.
“Where is that?” Leo leans forward.
“In our fucking house.” Monty flexes his hands.
“He didn’t record this the night he abducted me. It’s daylight outside.” I point to the window on the video.
Kody drains his vodka and grips my thigh.
Denver starts to speak, his voice filling the room. “I’ve lived to bury my desires and see my dreams corrode with rust. Now all that’s left are fruitless fires that burn my empty heart to dust.”
“More riddles.” Kody’s breathing changes, becomes more pronounced.
Denver sprawls on my couch, arms stretched across the seat back, the very embodiment of a psychopath.
His smile is all charm, sweetly warm, yet the coldness in his eyes is chilling. “If you’re watching this, it means I shuffled off this mortal coil and entrusted one of my sons with my riddle. Who was it, I wonder? Which of my boys did I deem smart enough to solve the puzzle and retrieve the thumb drive? Which one was worthy enough to share my legacy?”
“The fuck?” Kody shifts restlessly, fighting to stay anchored to the sofa.
“Technically…” I clutch Kody’s hand. “He gave the riddle to me.”
Monty’s gaze remains glued to the screen. He hasn’t seen Denver in thirty years. I can’t fathom what he’s feeling right now.
“I have a story to tell and not much time.” Denver glances around the room—the space I shared with Monty. “When I reached the tender age of eighteen, my coldblooded brother—Wolf, the name I fondly bestowed upon him in our youth—had our father commission my execution. A twist of fate spared me when I confessed to my father that same week that I would be a father. I got sweet, little Tia Langston pregnant, and that revelation stayed my father’s hand. He had just finished building a safe house in the hills of the Arctic Circle using my hydroelectric design to power it. My punishment? A life exiled within that desolate cabin, erased from the world I knew. My survival hinged on sporadic flights to Whittier, supply runs facilitated by a man known as Alvis Duncan. My father gave me a Turbo Beaver, which was logged and supervised. Then he had Tia Langston’s parents killed, changed her name, and moved her to an unknown location. Make no mistake. Rurik’s intentions were never rooted in affection for Tia or me. It was the bloodline he sought to preserve—his son and now his grandson, the continuation of our lineage.”
A war drum thunders in my chest.
Leo doesn’t move or blink. No one does.
On the screen, Denver twists his lips. “Unbeknown to my father, my efforts to locate Tia had borne fruit. I discovered her in Fairbanks, where she brought my son into the world, only to vanish again, emerging in California under the guise of Helena Weiss.” His smile is a grimace of twisted satisfaction. “No matter. My persistence paid off. I reclaimed what was mine when my son was three. I named him Leonid in homage to Port Lions—the cradle of his mother’s and my fateful encounter. But those first two years were rough. Whenever my nosy parents visited the cabin, I had to tie up poor Tia and Leo far away from the property and rid the rooms of their existence. My parents couldn’t know that I had brought them home with me in crates.”
“Melanie, can we pause it for a moment?” I ask, my voice calmer than I feel.
The video halts, freezing Denver’s smirk.
Turning to Leo, I search his bloodshot eyes. “Do you remember visits from Denver’s parents? Anything about him tying up you and your mother away from the cabin?”
“It’s all a blur.” He grips his nape. “There were times when things didn’t make sense. Moments of fear, of hiding, but it’s like trying to grasp smoke. I remember…fear. And confusion. But specific visits? It’s hard to say.”
“My parents died when you were five.” Monty braces his elbows on his spread knees and stares at his clasped hands. “It’s possible, with all the trauma you endured, your brain buried it as a way to protect…”
His words trail off as he tries to make sense of it. They’re all struggling, and it breaks my heart.
At my nod, Melanie resumes the video.
“During one of my father’s visits without my mother, he revealed that Kaya was with child, his child.” Denver cocks his head at the camera. “My disillusionment was profound. The irony that Rurik and Montgomery conspired against my life for my adoration of Kaya, only for Rurik to sully her with his seed. What an unfortunate situation. Unfortunate for him. On his next visit to check up on me, we met in Whittier during my supply run. A subtle manipulation of his aircraft’s mechanics sealed his fate. As for my mother, she was collateral damage, a mere shadow that never imprinted upon me.”
“God, just shut up already.” My stomach hurts just looking at him.
“In the wake of my father’s demise,” Denver muses, “I had more freedom. His goons still lingered, collecting flight logs and living out their contracts. Unfortunately, I never determined how many contracts were in play or how long they were hired to supervise me. Some were hitmen, contracted to execute me on sight if I broke my father’s rules after he died. I had to learn to bend those rules and sneak around them. I won’t bore you with details on how I tracked Tia Langston to California, shadowed Montgomery’s promiscuous activities, and hunted down Kaya while being watched by my father’s goons. Maybe I had another plane. Maybe I had a protege to sow confusion. Maybe it’s merely a matter of my superior intellect.” His gray eyes glimmer. “Since my father hid Kaya’s location from me, it took two years to find her. By the time I was twenty-five, the world was my chessboard, and I, the grandmaster, orchestrated the fates of pawns and kings alike. And Tia…” He makes a tsking sound. “Poor, irrational Tia tied me to my bed. So I buried her alive.”
Leo’s hand jerks in my grip.
“Want to pause it?” I ask.
His head gives a sharp shake.
“In that pivotal year, the pieces of my chessboard aligned.” Denver leans back on the couch and props a socked foot on his knee. “I located Kaya. My father, ever the architect of isolation, hid her outside a northern coastal village. Completely alone. Lost to the world. Much in the way he isolated me. Kaya gave birth in solitude, undocumented, and named the child after our beloved Kodiak Island. I would’ve left them there. But my brother ordered my death, and my father brought another brother into the world. So I intended to use Kaya and that child to hurt Montgomery. Killing Montgomery would’ve been a mercy. My long-term plan was to slowly strip away everyone from his life and banish them to the shadows that have become my realm. A balancing of scales. Unfortunately, Kaya didn’t last. She was too soft. Too weak. And Kodiak? I hated him for existing, for being my father’s son. Then I raised him. He became more important than vengeance. He became mine.”
The air feels colder, the devil’s presence emanating from the past. I shiver, reminding myself repeatedly that he’s no longer alive, that he can’t hurt us anymore.
Monty tightens his jaw, fighting his emotions through controlled, deliberate breaths. His eyes harden into chips of ice as he aims his frosty, seething anger at the screen, at Denver’s smug expression.
A shadow hovers over Kody’s features, and the muscles in Leo’s arms haven’t stopped flexing.
Denver’s smile flashes on the screen. “I monitored Montgomery’s endless parade of women, biding my time, waiting for fate to present herself. And then there was Gretchen. She let Monty believe the pregnancy was terminated, left the clinic with his child intact, and fled to Iowa to hide her deceit. It was I who orchestrated her return, guided Wolfson into the world, named him, and claimed him as my own creation.” The light catches in his eyes, a spark of mirth in the grim narrative. “Oh, the tales I could divulge. You must be frothing with questions. How did I locate Gretchen from my secluded cabin? Why did I allow her to fuck Leo? Why didn’t I interfere when eight-year-old Wolfson killed her? I’ll leave it for you to unravel. But I’ll confess this. When she died, we were all relieved. Gretchen was not the fate I had so patiently anticipated. Neither was Jasmine nor Alyssa. Devoid of ties to Montgomery, they were nonentities, mere pawns in a game my boys refused to play. Then, a few years ago, the stars finally aligned. The perfect pawn to play with my boys and the fate that would destroy Montgomery once and for all presented herself.” Leaning closer, he stares directly into the camera. “Frankie, my whole life has been pledged to this meeting with you.”
