"I'm not asking anything." He stood. "I'm just... noticing. That's all."
He walked to the door, paused with his hand on the handle.
"Luca mentioned you've seemed different lately. Lighter, he said. Happier." Ronan glanced back at me. "I told him that was a good thing. Whatever's causing it."
He left.
I sat in the silence of my office, staring at the investigator's card on my desk, and thought about how well Ronan knew me. How well they all knew me after years of working together.
The investigators hadn't noticed anything. They'd seen exactly what I wanted them to see.
But Ronan had seen something else. Not evidence. Not suspicion. Just... a feeling. The instinct of someone who'd watched me for years and knew when something was off.
He hadn't asked. Hadn't pushed. But he'd noticed.
And sooner or later, noticing would turn into questions.
That evening, I told Tobias about the investigators.
His face went pale. "They're still looking?"
"The family hasn't given up. They're showing your photo around town."
"But I've been—" He stopped. "The bookstore. I've been going to the bookstore. People have seen me."
"Has anyone recognized you?"
"I don't think so. I look different now. The hair, the clothes..." He ran a hand through his hair, which he'd let grow out, fallingacross his forehead in a way that softened his face. "But if they show my photo to enough people..."
"We need to be careful."
"Maybe I should quit. Stay inside."
"No." The word came out sharper than I intended. "You're not going back to hiding in the apartment. That's not a life."
"But if they find me—"
"Then we'll deal with it." I pulled him close. "You've worked too hard to go backward now."
He was quiet for a moment, his face pressed against my shoulder.
"I'm scared," he admitted.
"I know."
"Not of them finding me. Of what happens after." He pulled back, looking at me. "If my family finds me, they'll want me back. They'll pressure me, guilt me, threaten me. I don't know if I'm strong enough to say no."
"You are."
"You don't know that."
"I do." I cupped his face in my hands. "I've watched you become someone new. Someone who makes his own choices. That person can say no."
He closed his eyes. "I hope you're right."
In the following weeks, I watched him settle into something resembling peace.
The bookstore suited him. He could lose himself in the stacks for hours, organizing shelves that hadn't been touched in years, discovering titles he'd never heard of. Miriam treated him like a grandson, feeding him homemade cookies and recommending obscure Russian novels.
