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Evan: Ask around. Quietly, if you’re smart.
Evan: Those men around him aren’t bodyguards, Elle.
I read them once.
Then I read them again, slower.
The part that bothers me is not that Evan sounds deranged. He doesn’t. He sounds exactly like himself when he’s angry and trying to pretend, he is above it. Mean, controlled, personal enough to get under my skin. But that’s not the only problem. But this time, he’s actually right.
In what fucked up world is Evan Cross trying to warn me of worse dangers? And in what world do I still want to walk right into it?
Nikolai is bad news. I can get in real trouble if I’m not careful, but despite knowing all of that, despite being rational for most of my life, I don’t want to do anything about it but stay.
Things are fucked up. He’s practically keeping his daughter and me locked up in his mansion; he has the baggage of his dead wife and whatever complicated relationship with his sibling.
And despite that… despite all of that, I’m still here. And I still want him.
After all of that mess with Evan, I had promised myself that I would always be careful who I give away my heart to. So why am I still here? Why am I not running away screaming? Disappearing? Fighting to get out of a dangerous situation I’ve been in for the past three years of my life? How is it different from all the other times I’ve done it?
Anya is still inside her room, humming to herself while she works through the puzzle I left her with. I can hear the faint scratch of her pencil against paper.
And I know the truth. I can’t leave her. I can’t leave him either.
I should go back in.
I should sit beside her, explain the next pattern, and act like Evan has not found another way to reach me, that he has made me feel torn about all his feelings yet again, just like the narcissistic abuser he is.
Instead, I stand in the corridor with Anya’s blue cardigan over my arm and Nikolai Volkov’s name sitting in my messages like something I should have expected.
“Elara.” Nikolai is a few steps away, watching me.
He’s not close enough to touch me, but he is close enough to see my face. He is dressed for work, dark trousers and a black shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. His jacket is missing, and his hair is a little disturbed, as if he has been running his hand through it.
His gaze moves to the phone in my hand. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
His eyes come back to mine.
I sigh. “Fine. Something.”
He doesn’t look pleased by the correction. “Evan?”
I press the phone against my side. “Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing useful.”
“That was not my question.”
“No, but it was my answer.”
Nikolai looks toward Anya’s closed door, then back at me. “Is she inside?”
“Yes. Doing puzzles.”
“Then walk with me.”
