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“You’re shaking.” Very, very visibly. And we’re not in a position where we can pull over and I can take over driving.

“I know. Sorry, ma’am, I’ve never⁠—”

The SUV suddenly accelerates. It closes the distance between us so quickly that my stomach drops and Jeff jerks the wheel accidentally, a surprised yelp leaving my lips.

“Keep going. Don’t slow down for them, just get us back.”

Please, please let Arthur be waiting outside in the drive to bitch me out.

The beat-up red SUV pulls alongside us, then swerves toward our lane. Jeff jerks the wheel again, intentionally this time, and speeds up.

Our tires leave the pavement for the shoulder, gravel spraying beneath us.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Stay on the road,” I snap.

The SUV falls back. For three seconds, everything is quiet.

Then it comes again.

Harder.

It slams toward our rear quarter, forcing us toward the ditch. Jeff fights the wheel, face white. I grip the door handle.

“Don’t stop.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

We’re almost there. If we can just make it⁠—

The SUV finally breaks away at the next turn.

I watch it disappear between the trees, my heart hammering. Neither of us speaks until we finally turn into the gravel drive of the lake house, and I see Vasily immediately.

He’s standing at the bottom of the porch steps, waiting, thunder in the corners of his angular eyes.

I suddenly feel like a teenager who has just come home three hours past curfew. Except I also feel like that was way too close to a near-death experience.

Jeff practically spills out of the SUV, leaving me in the back. I can see him talking frantically, hurrying toward the steps and looking over his shoulder, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. With shaking hands, I open the back door and step out, smoothing down my t-shirt.

Vasily’s attention moves from Jeff to me.

“What happened?”

Jeff swallows. “We were followed. An SUV came after us. Tried to force us off the road.”

Vasily’s face goes completely still. Not angry, worse. Cold.

His eyes settle on me, but he speaks to Jeff: “Back inside, please. In the future, if Miss Pierce asks for anything, you have the right to say no, or hold off and check with myself, Ariadna, or Arthur.”

Jeff nods, lips down-turned, hands still shaking. He disappears behind the glass doors.

Vasily is still staring me down. I clutch my purse in one hand, waiting, praying that he can’t read on my face everything that’s happened over the past hour. But when he speaks again, it’s solidly grounded in the present.

“That was a warning from Yuri Ritter. Never leave here without protection, or without telling me, again.”

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.