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“What happened?” he asks.

“Anya and Elara are missing.”

He follows me, no questions asked. He only checks the magazine in his pistol and moves beside me.

The back garden is quiet. The afternoon light has faded behind the trees, and the grass is damp from the sprinkler system. I scan the stone path, the greenhouse, the old tool shed, and the narrow space beside the rear wall.

I see Elara by the garden gate, and relief moves through me before I understand why she is standing so still.

Then I see Evan behind her.

Evan is behind Elara, one arm across her chest and a gun pressed to her head. His other hand is twisted into the back of Anya’s coat while she struggles to get away from him.

For a moment, I simply stare at him. My hand tightens around the gun until the metal presses into my palm. The garden, the house, and the men behind me fall out of my attention. All I can see is Evan’s face beside Elara’s and the way he is holding her.

Elara looks at me over his arm. She doesn’t speak. Her eyes move immediately to Anya.

Evan smiles when he sees me. “Put your gun down,” he says. “Or I shoot them both.”

My hand closes around my weapon. I can feel my pulse in my fingers, but I keep my aim steady because Elara is between us, and Anya is within his reach. Anya is struggling against him, kicking at his shin and twisting toward Elara.

“Let her go!” she cries.

Evan jerks her backward. “Stop moving.”

Elara’s face is pale, but she is looking at Anya, not at the gun.

I raise mine.

Evan sees me and smiles.

The expression on his face is wrong. His hair is disordered, his eyes are bright and unfocused, and there is blood on one sleeve. I don’t know how he got into the house. Even without security, he shouldn’t be here. Why didn’t the alarm tip us off? But none of that matters. He’s here—and he has the two people I love the most in the world. This can’t end badly.

Sergei moves a step to my left.

Evan presses the weapon harder against Elara’s temple. “I said put it down.”

I keep my gun aimed at his head.

“You thought you could take her away from me?” I ask. “You thought you could disappear with her and I would let you?”

“She belongs with me.”

“She has never belonged to you.”

His face twists. Elara flinches when his arm tightens across her ribs.

I see it, and the sight nearly breaks the control I am forcing into place.

“Take your arm off her,” I say.

Evan laughs. “You don’t get to give orders anymore.”

“Evan,” Elara says quietly. “Please. This isn’t you.”

He looks down at her, almost offended, while I keep my gun trained on him. “You used to know who I was.”

“I’m asking you to stop and think about what you’re doing.”