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“You didn’t ask for cameras.”

“No.”

“He didn’t see you, Liv. He watched you.”

I pulled away and wrapped my arms around myself. Anger moved beneath my skin, hot enough to hold me upright.

“I need air.”

“You need to leave.”

I turned toward him. “My apartment is locked.”

“Your apartment was violated. Come to my house.”

“My masked problem might follow.”

Kalon’s jaw flexed. “Let him try.”

“That might be the worst safety plan I’ve ever heard.”

“It isn’t a plan. It’s a boundary.” His eyes held mine. “He wants to watch you? Make him step into the open.”

The thought sent fear through my stomach, followed by something far less respectable.

Would he follow?

Would he stand outside another man’s home because I left mine? Would he prove the roses meant something beyond control, possession, and whatever game it was he thought we were playing?

I hated myself for wanting the answer.

“I need a bag.”

“I’ll wait by the door.”

I packed a hoodie, clean clothes, toiletries, my charger, and enough underwear to suggest optimism about how long nervous breakdowns lasted. My bedroom remained exactly as I had left it. Unmade bed. Sweater over the chair. Books stacked beside the nightstand.

Nothing had changed.

Everything had changed.

I carried the tote into the living room. Kalon was still beside the door.

“Ready?” he asked.

“No.”

He took the bag after I offered it. “We’ll go anyway.”

The hallway felt too exposed. I glanced back before we reached the stairs, half expecting a tall shadow to be standing near my door.

No one.

Disappointment struck hard enough to make me furious at myself all over again.

Outside, Kalon opened the passenger door and waited while I climbed into his car. I held the tote against my stomach as the city passed in streaks of gold and black. Every shadow between buildings seemed occupied.

Kalon’s house sat behind an iron gate on a quiet street lined with old trees. Warm light glowed through the windows, and the place had the expensive, settled appearance of somewhere no landlord had ever ignored a maintenance request.