My phone vibrates once more. Misha again.
“Tell me you have more than threads,” I demand.
“Threads that begin to braid,” he replies. “An old contact remembers a contractor who moved money for men who liked the illusion of clean hands. The contractor’s name appears on a few old corporate records from the nineties. Nothing overtly criminal but the companies tie back to Barinov fronts. The contractor had a name, Thomas Bellamy. Your girl’s family lived in our circle, whether they knew the edges of it or not.”
“Do not call her my girl,” I grit out, and the warning surprises both of us.
“Noted,” he says dryly. “The point remains.”
“Point accepted,” I reply. “No definite conclusions. Proximity only.”
“For now,” he states, and I can hear him light a cigarette even though he promised to quit. “One more thing. A couple of old timers at the bar remember her father as a man who minded his own business until he stopped showing up at all. Farmers have better memories than bookkeepers. I will press again tonight and see what else turns up.”
“Do it,” I say. “Carefully.”
“I am always careful,” he mutters, and ends the call.
Kolya slips out before I do, vanishing into the rain.
I stand, and Vega rises with me, his body a constant that anchors the rest of the chaos that lives in my world. Misha’s words still sit in my mouth like ash, the neat little inventory of names and invoices that do not line up the way honest lives should. Threads are becoming braided. A contractor’s name stamped next to Bellamy on a ledger that should have been clean.
I walk to the door with Vega at my side. I don’t leave because I want to stay and watch her, even if that’s closer to the truth than I’d like to admit. I leave because information is an enemy that must be chased down. If her family stands where Misha suggests, then every polite smile, every stiff-lipped answer she gives will be a map I intend to read until the truth shows its shape.
Outside, the rain smells like iron and pine. Vega pads in front of me and then back, an arc of loyalty that keeps me centered. I don’t turn back to look through the café window. What I hold are only threads, thin ties linking Sage to my world. But I know what to do with threads. I pull them tight until they braid into chains.
5
SAGE
Fog curls low around the lamplight as I twist the key in the café door. The metallic clink echoes louder than usual, swallowed almost instantly by the dense stillness of Aspen Ridge at night. Tourists have gone back to their rented cabins, and locals are tucked inside homes with wood stoves burning. Main Street feels emptied out, too still for comfort, and the hush closes in around me.
I tuck the key into my pocket, hugging my jacket close against the bite in the air. Underneath it lies something colder that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention.
Footsteps echo behind me, persistent and close. My pulse spikes. I quicken my pace, boots scraping on the slick pavement where moisture has begun to settle. The fog thickens as I move, disguising the edges of the alley beside the bookstore. I catch movement there, a shifting mass darker than shadow, and my breath hitches in my chest.
“Hello?” My voice cracks. I hate the way fear bleeds through despite my attempt at firmness.
No answer. I clutch my bag tighter against my ribs and keep moving, my heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat. The familiar route to my parked car suddenly feels foreign, stretched out and treacherous. Then headlights blaze through the mist. White light cuts through the fog like a blade. A black SUV screeches to a stop so close I feel the rush of displaced air against my face and smell the burn of hot rubber on asphalt.
My heart lurches into my throat. Doors slam. Two. Maybe three.
“Wait—” My protest shatters into the night, but rough hands are already on me before the word fully leaves my lips. Fingers clamp around my arms with bruising force, jerking me backward so hard my feet nearly leave the ground.
I thrash with everything I have, every ounce of strength I possess. My bag hits the ground with a thud, the contents spilling across the wet pavement. I shriek, the sound tearing from my throat raw and desperate, kicking out wildly, nails clawing at wrists I can’t see clearly. My voice ricochets off the brick walls that line Main Street, but no one answers.
A cloth clamps over my mouth, acrid and stinging, the chemical smell so strong it makes my eyes water instantly. My lungs seize as the tang invades them, burning down my throat. I wrench my head from side to side, fighting for clean air, but the grip only tightens. Panic drums wildly in my chest, a frantic rhythm that drowns out rational thought and reduces me to pure animal instinct.
Dark fabric drops over my eyes. A blindfold yanks down roughly, cutting me off from even the dim glow of lamplight filtering through the fog. The world shrinks into sound and touch alone. Rough hands drag me backward. My gasps and screams are muffled against the chemical-soaked cloth.
“No!” The word dies against the cloth pressed hard over my mouth. I thrash harder, my nails digging deep enough into flesh that I feel skin give way beneath them, but someone wrenches my wrists behind me. The cloth on my mouth presses harder, forcing my head back at an uncomfortable angle. Spots dance behind my closed lids, white and red bursts of light that signal my body beginning to surrender despite my mind's screaming resistance.
I’m pulled into the SUV, then something brushes against my thigh, warm, solid, and achingly familiar. Fur. A wet nose nudging me with unexpected insistence, with what almost feels like concern. My chest convulses with relief before dread crushes it flat, extinguishing that brief flare of hope. Vega. And where Vega is, Luka Barinov is, too.
And then I hear him. That voice I have come to recognize over days of him occupying my café like he owns it.
His voice slices through the dark, cool and merciless. “I want the truth.”
I barely process the words. I can’t make sense of what truth he could possibly want from me, before the chemical on the cloth drags me under. My body surrenders despite every screaming nerve, my eyelids fighting to stay open, maintain consciousness, and hold onto some shred of control. The world drops away, lost to darkness.
