But all morning, something has felt off. Maybe it’s the silence in the car. My driver—Vadim—has the kind of presence that hangs in the air even when he doesn’t speak. If I had any doubt that Makari was more than just a businessman before, this vanquishes it; men like Vadim are made for more than just driving people around. He watches everything. Absorbs everything. And this morning he has been watchingme.
“You sure you don’t want me to wait inside?” he asks now, the first thing he’s said in fifteen minutes.
“It’s fine,” I say lightly. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
His eyes flick toward the attorney’s building, scanning the street, then the rooftops. Part of me wants to roll my eyes, but I know better. Ursa Arcane employees are trained this way. Trained to anticipate danger before it shows itself. Trained by men like Makari Medvedev.
A ripple of heat moves through me at the thought of him—unwelcome, embarrassing, too sharp.
Was it really only yesterday that Andi stumbled upon her father? I put a hand to my chest at the memory of the fear that spiked through me when I heard Dima’s shout and realized who she was with. When Makari told me with a straight face that she’d asked abouthis tooth.
He handled it—handled her—with more patience than I knew he was capable of. I’ve been trying and failing not to picture the way he looked at me after she left the room—some mixture of confusion and heat and something dangerously close to tenderness.
I inhale deeply. Focus.
Today isn’t about Makari. It can’t be. This is about solid ground. Stability. A front door that locks. A childhood for my daughter that doesn’t involve scraping to meet the rent and moving to another county, another classroom. She could have friends here. A home.
I take one step toward the attorney’s door?—
“Roxy?”
The voice freezes me in place.
I turn slowly.
Eric Harlan stands on the sidewalk, half a cigarette hanging from his fingers, a deputy’s badge clipped to his belt. My brain takes a beat too long to reconcile the two images. What the hell is he doinghere?The boy I dated my first year of college wore charm like armor—blue-eyed confidence, easy laugh, warmth curling at the edges of everything he touched.
This man isn’t that.
His uniform hangs too loose on him, his face thinner than it should be, like someone stripped him down to bone and left only the shadows. His eyes—once bright—look hollow. Sleep-deprived. Dangerous in a way I can’t explain.
But he smiles; a lopsided grin that shows too many teeth and doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Long time,” he says.
I grip the strap of my purse. “Yeah. It’s been a while.”
There are polite things I could say, small talk I could attempt. But every instinct screams at me to keep my distance. To turn the conversation into something brief and forgettable.Why?I was never scared of Eric back then; sad that he obviously lost interest in me so quickly, but never scared.
So why are alarm bells sounding in my head?
Eric flicks the cigarette away and steps closer. The smell of stale smoke clings to him, mixed with something sour, like old adrenaline.
“Didn’t think I’d see you here.” His eyes sweep over me. Not appreciative. Assessing. Like he’s trying to read behind my ribs. “Didn’t you want to move out west? Do land management or something? You look good.”
My skin crawls.
“Just visiting for work,” I say, which is technically true.
His eyebrows lift slowly. “Where’s your kid? She must be what—six now?”
“Yes.” I force a polite smile. “Six.”
He whistles softly, low under his breath. “Crazy. You were just pregnant the last time I saw you.” He takes another step toward me. My pulse jumps. A warning bell inside me clangs hard.
After that weekend with Kat in Bar Harbor, after that night with Makari in the bank, I’d gone back to school. Unsuspecting. Naïve.
Only to find out a month later, I was pregnant. Kat assumed I would quit classes, but I didn’t; Mom encouraged me to stay on if I wanted to and take online courses. I wasso closeto finishing my bachelor’s. It was easier than I expected once I got myself on a schedule and learned to catnap in the car in between classes. What I hadn’t thought of was having to see Eric on campus and having to let go of friends who were mortified by my situation and the decision to keep my baby.
