Forget Me Not_ The Mafia's Lost Queen

CHAPTER 3: The Accusation

SELITHRA POV

"I'm not your wife," I say, the words clear even though my hands are shaking at my sides. "I don't even know you."

He doesn't move, just stands there watching me with those silver-grey eyes that feel like they're seeing through every lie I've ever told even though I'm not lying, I'm telling the truth, I don't know this man, I've never seen him before in my life.

"Look at me," he says quietly.

"I am looking at you."

"No." He steps into the light, fully into the lamplight that spills across his desk, and I get my first clear view of his face and I hate that my breath catches because he's—he's devastatingly handsome in a way that feels dangerous, all sharp angles and cold beauty, like something carved from ice that would cut you if you touched it. Dark hair, pale skin, that scar on his jaw that somehow makes him more striking instead of less, and eyes that are the color of winter storms, silver-grey and cold and fixed on me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. "Look at me and tell me you don't recognize anything."

I look and I feel nothing, no spark of memory, no flash of familiarity, just the crawling sensation of being studied by something predatory.

"I don't know you," I repeat.

Something flickers across his face, too fast to read, and then his expression goes blank again, controlled and cold.

"Sit down," he says, and it's not a request this time, it's an order.

"No."

His eyebrows rise slightly, like he's surprised I'm still refusing, and he makes a small gesture with one hand that I don't understand until I hear movement behind me—the guards are still there, still watching, and I realize I forgot about them because I was so focused on him.

"You can sit willingly or they can make you sit," he says, his voice perfectly even. "Your choice."

I glance back at the guards, both of them big and armed and looking at me with blank professional faces, and I know I don't have a real choice here, so I walk to the chair in front of his desk and sit down with my spine straight and my hands folded in my lap to hide the shaking.

"Better," he murmurs, and he moves back around the desk to his own chair, settling into it with the kind of ease that comes from sitting in that exact spot a thousand times before.

He reaches for something on the desk, another photograph, and slides it across the polished wood toward me, the motion deliberate and controlled.

"Look at this one," he says.

I lean forward and my hands move on their own, picking up the frame even though I'm not sure I want to see what's in it, and when I look down at the image my hands start trembling so badly I almost drop it.

It's the same girl from the other photo but older now, maybe sixteen or seventeen, standing in what looks like a garden with flowers blooming around her in shades of pink and white. She's wearing a summer dress, pale blue, and her dark hair is loose around her shoulders, and she's smiling at whoever's taking the picture with an expression that's open and happy and so different from the shy girl in the school uniform that she almost looks like a different person.

But the eyes are the same, amber-gold and distinctive, exactly like mine, and the shape of her face, the curve of her mouth, the way she stands with one hip slightly higher than the other—it's all me, it's all my face, my body, my features, just attached to someone who looks like she belongs in this place, in this life.

"That's not me," I whisper, but my voice shakes and I don't sound convincing even to myself.

"Isn't it?"

"It can't be, I would remember"

"Would you?" He leans back in his chair, watching me with those cold eyes. "You said yourself you have amnesia, that you don't remember anything before three years ago, so how would you know what you would or wouldn't remember?"

"Because I " I stop because I don't have a good answer to that, I don't know how to explain the certainty I feel that this girl isn't me, that she's someone else who just happens to share my face.

"Her name was Selithra Noctis," he says, and his voice is soft but there's something underneath it, something that sounds almost like pain. "Daughter of Dimitri Noctis, one of the most powerful men in this city before he died, and she lived in this estate from the time she was six years old until she vanished three years ago at the age of twenty one."

"That's not my name," I say, but even as the words come out I'm not sure they're true because Selithra is my name, I just don't have the rest of it, I don't have the Noctis part.

"Isn't it?" He picks up another photograph, this one smaller, and holds it up so I can see it; the same girl, even younger now, maybe twelve or thirteen, standing next to him, next to this man who's looking at me like I'm a ghost, and in the photo his hand is on her shoulder and she's smiling up at him like he's someone she trusts, someone she loves.

"Who are you?" I ask, and I hate how small my voice sounds.

"My name is Zephran Corvin," he says. "And you're my wife."

"I'm not"

"Legally, you are," he interrupts. "We were married when you were twelve years old, a political arrangement between our families, and the marriage became real when you turned eighteen and chose to stay with me rather than walk away like you could have."

"That's insane," I say, and I stand up because I can't sit anymore, I can't stay still while he tells me these impossible things. "I would remember getting married, I would remember"

"You don't remember anything," he cuts me off, and now there's an edge to his voice, sharp and cold. "That's the problem, isn't it? You don't remember this place, you don't remember me, you don't remember killing your father three years ago to save my life, and you don't remember begging me to help you forget it all."

The words hit me like punches and I take a step back without meaning to, my hip hitting the chair, and I grab the back of it to steady myself because the room is spinning and I can't breathe properly.

"I didn't kill anyone," I manage to say.

"Didn't you?" He stands up too, slowly, deliberately, and he's so much taller than me that I have to tilt my head back to keep looking at his face. "Then explain the DNA results we have on file that match you to Selithra Noctis, explain the photographs, explain the fact that you walked through my front door with the exact face and eyes of a woman who's been missing for three years."

"I don't have to explain anything to you," I say, and I'm angry now, genuinely angry, because he's accusing me of things I didn't do, telling me I'm someone I'm not, and I don't care how many photographs he has or how much I look like this girl, I'm not her. "I came here for a job interview, that's all, I don't know who you think I am but you're wrong, and I'm leaving."

I turn toward the door and I make it exactly two steps before his voice stops me.

"The guards won't let you leave."

I freeze with my hand reaching for the door handle and I look back at him over my shoulder.

"You can't keep me here."

"Can't I?" He tilts his head slightly, studying me like I'm something interesting but ultimately insignificant. "You're in my house, surrounded by my security, and as far as the legal system is concerned you're my wife who's been missing for three years, so yes, I think I can keep you here as long as I want."

"That's kidnapping."

"No," he says softly. "That's protecting my assets until I understand what game you're playing."

"I'm not playing any game!" My voice rises and I don't care anymore about sounding calm or controlled, I just want him to believe me, to understand that I'm telling the truth. "I have amnesia, I don't remember anything before three years ago, I'm not this Selithra Noctis person, I'm just someone who needed a job!"

"Then why did you come here?" he asks, and his voice is still soft but there's steel underneath it now. "Out of all the job postings in this city, why did you choose this one?"