Inside the office, nausea swirls in my gut. I grip the doorframe and breathe.
The receptionist waves me in, cheerful and oblivious to the ice in my bloodstream. I force myself to sit, sign papers, initial boxes, nod in all the correct places. The house is officially mine, but the relief doesn’t come. Not yet. Not with Eric’s hollow eyes still burned into my mind.
What the hell is he doing here in Bar Harbor?
Then I remember—his uncle. His uncle was on the police force here. Suddenly, the papers feel like a chain trapping me here, with a man I don’t trust. He changed so much…something is wrong.
When I step back outside, Vadim is still standing by the SUV, door open. He says nothing until I slide into the back seat. Then he turns slightly, voice low. “Friend of yours?”
“No,” I say posthaste. Vadim is the kind of employee who, without a doubt, tells his employer everything; and I don’t need any more complications right now. I don’t need Makari to know my ex is here. Especially not after his ‘warning’ about Andi’s father. “No, just someone I used to know.”
He waits, watching me again with that sharp, assessing calm.
I clear my throat. “Please don’t mention this to Mr. Medvedev.”
His expression doesn’t change. “Why would I mention it?”
I press my lips together. “Because he’s…my employer. And you all report things to him.”
“Do you believe he should know?”
“No,” I blurt. “I—no. It’s nothing. Eric just surprised me. That’s all.”
Vadim watches me another long, unsettling beat before he closes the door and walks around to the driver’s seat. As we pull away from the curb, I take one last glance in the side mirror.
Eric is still on the sidewalk.
A chill slides down my spine.
I face forward, pressing a palm to my stomach to steady the nerves that won’t stop jumping. Makari wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t.
He’s busy. Preoccupied. Running a criminal empire. He’s not sitting by the window wondering where I am or who I’m talking to.
He doesn’t see me that way.
Even after the cabin—after everything we did—he pulled back. He let me go. He let silence settle between us for a week.
It meant nothing to him.
It was just an impulse, a memory reawakened, and a quick release. Which is fine because that’s all it was to me, too.
So why am I sitting in the back of this SUV praying that no one mentions my ex’s name? Why am I afraid of what Makari would do?
Only the faint echo of his voice in my head.
If he ever shows up, he’ll regret ever looking away from you two.
He said it like a promise. Tears gather at the corners of my eyes at how fucked up it all is.He doesn’t know,and I can’t tell him.
I look out the window at the passing streets, the pale morning light breaking through the clouds, the neat rows of homes. Mine is somewhere back in the woods, near the river. I can’t quite believe it.
I should feel safe. Instead, all I can think about is danger—Eric’s hollow eyes, his questions, the way he blocked the sunlight when he stepped too close.
And the far more frightening thought: Makari is a storm. Eric is smoke. And I’m caught between a man who could destroy the world and a man who looks like the world destroyed him.
The SUV turns onto the coastal road, heading back toward the estate. I hope Vadim dismisses this morning as nothing.
But hope feels thin and unreliable.
