My pulse spiked. I guess I was hoping that I’d imagined it. “What was it?”
He held up a finger and moved stealthily around the apartment before he inched toward the windows. He didn’t turn on lights. Didn’t rush. Just walked with the certainty of a man who expected danger and welcomed it.
He crouched near the glass, peering out toward the neighboring buildings.
“Come here,” he murmured. “Slowly.”
“You said to stay away from the glass,” I grumbled belligerently. Every instinct screamed don’t, but my feet moved anyway. I stayed a step behind him, heart hammering so loudly I was sure whoever was out there could hear it.
Archer tilted his head slightly. “Because the lights were all on. Now they’re not. I still don’t want you close to the windows very often, but I want you to be aware. Someone’s on the roof across the street.”
I sucked in a breath. “What do you mean someone’s there? Who? Doing what?”
“Watching,” he said calmly. “Not moving. Been there a while. I was just checking to see if there were more.”
My stomach dropped. “More? Watching… us?”
He shrugged. “They don’t care about me. They’re watching you.”
The words sank into my bones like ice. I stepped closer to the glass before he could stop me—and saw it.
Not a face. Not a body. All I could see was a shape. A shadow where there shouldn’t be one. Still. Intent. Out of place. Though there were apartments across the way, and it could’ve been a tenant, somehow I knew that wasn’t what it was.
Archer’s hand closed around my wrist, drawing me back into the shadows of the room. “That’s enough.”
I shot him a glare that said, See? I told you. My breath came fast. “How long have they been there?”
“Long enough for me to know it’s deliberate.”
“Do they know I’m here?”
“Oh, I’m sure—or they wouldn’t be there.”
A tremor ran through me. “Do they know I’m alone?”
Archer’s jaw tightened. “You’re not alone. But I guarantee you they know Maksim is gone.”
That was worse.
I hugged my arms around myself, fighting the urge to curl into a ball. “He said I’d be safe.”
“You are,” he instantly insisted. “Because I am here. And because whoever that is does not want to be seen yet.”
“Yet,” I echoed.
Archer guided me away from the living room, toward the interior hallway. “You’ll sleep in the inner bedroom tonight. No windows facing the watcher. I’ll be outside the door.”
I swallowed. “On the f-f-floor? You’re really not… leaving?”
“No. Not for food. Not for air.” His gaze softened just slightly. “He will skin me alive if anything happens to you. So I will sleep on the floor. I’m a very light sleeper, but lock the door.”
That shouldn’t have helped.
I mean, it did. Yet it didn’t.
As I lay in the spare bedroom later, lights off, the room dim and unfamiliar around me, my mind wouldn’t slow. Every creak sounded like a footstep. Every hum of the building felt like a warning.
My phone buzzed. A voicemail notification.
