Nikolai moves past us, scanning the hallway, checking angles. He says nothing, but I can feel him listening.
Maya takes a step back like she wants to run and then freezes because running does nothing. Her hands shake as she fumbles for her phone.
“Bella,” she says into the screen, like saying her name will make her appear. She tries to call. It rings once, then goes to voicemail.
Maya makes a sound in her throat. Not quite a sob. Something harsher.
She whirls on me. “And you think you can just fix this? You show up with a gun and your bodyguard and your…your whatever you are, and you think that makes it better?”
I take a step toward her. “I’m not here to scare you. I’m here because Bella and Lily are gone.”
Maya’s eyes flash. “You don’t get to say her name like you have a right.”
I stop. I swallow the anger because it’s wasted on her.
“You’re right,” I say. “I don’t. But I do need you to think. Bella called you. She came here because she trusts you. So someone knew she was here, or someone found her. Either way, we have minutes, not hours.”
Maya’s chest rises and falls like she’s fighting for air. She looks around the apartment again, like she expects to hear Lily’s little voice from the couch.
Then she looks back at me, and something cracks.
“This is your fault,” she blurts, and it comes out too fast, too raw, like it slips past her brain. “If you hadn’t shown up again, if you hadn’t dragged her back into your mess, if you hadn’t scared her on that plane, if you hadn’t beenyou, she wouldn’t be running with your kid.”
The hallway goes silent.
I feel like the floor tilts.
My kid.
For a second, I’m not sure I heard her right.
Maya’s eyes widen the moment the words leave her mouth. Her hand flies up to cover it, too late. She looks horrified with herself.
I stare at her. “What did you just say?”
She shakes her head, frantic. “I didn’t mean, I mean I did, but I didn’t, I’m sorry, I’m just panicking, I’m not thinking.”
My voice comes out low and dangerous. “Maya.”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Lily is your daughter.”
The words hit harder than a fist.
I stand there, frozen, while my brain tries to reject it and fails. Images snap into place like a lock turning.
Lily in the diner, pressing a sticker onto my sleeve. Lily’s face when she looked up at me like she knew me. That one word she said, bright and innocent.
Papa.
I feel sick. I feel hot. I feel like I could tear the building apart with my hands.
Maya is crying now, shaking. “Bella never wanted you to know. She never wanted anyone to know. She was trying to keep her safe. She was trying to keep herself safe. And then you came back and everything went insane.”
I can barely hear her over the sound of my pulse.
I stare at the wrecked doorway and it’s like I’m seeing it through a different lens now.
They didn’t just take Bella.
