“Last I checked.”
He exhales through his nose. “I figured you’d be glued to your perimeter monitors.”
I take another drink. “Why would I be?”
His eyes narrow slightly. “What’s going on with Anya?”
Ghost goes very still beside me as I glance at Mason. “You’re surprised to see me?”
“Yeah,” he says bluntly. “I am.”
I lean back against the bar. “Her dad came.”
“I know he came,” Mason replies. “You told me he was coming.”
“She’s with him.”
Mason studies my face like he’s looking for cracks. “She’s with him as in temporary?”
“She left with him.”
He stares at me for a long moment. “Where?”
“Not sure. Probably some hotel downtown.”
“And you’re just… sitting here?” Mason asks.
I feel something tighten in my chest at that. “What do you want me to do?” I snap. “Kick down the door and drag her back?”
Ghost glances between us but stays quiet. Mason’s voice doesn’t rise. It doesn’t need to. “I want to know if this is a temporary relocation or if we’re done being involved.”
I stare at the whiskey in my glass. “She said she needed time,” I say finally.
“And?”
“And I told her to take it.”
Mason’s jaw flexes once. “Riot.”
“What?”
He leans closer, forearms braced on the bar. “You pulled that woman out of hell. You put our name in front of her father. You stared down one of the most powerful men in Eastern Europe in your driveway.”
I don’t respond.
“And now she’s just… gone?” he finishes.
There’s something in his tone that isn’t accusation. It’s confusion.
I look at him. “Yeah,” I say.
Ghost sets his empty bottle down softly. “So that’s it?” he asks, voice low. “She’s gone?”
The words sit there. Gone. I picture her in that back seat. The way she didn’t look away. The way she took the burner phone like it meant something. My phone vibrates in my pocket. All three of us look at my phone as I pull it out slowly. Unknown number. My pulse kicks up hard and fast. I open the message.
Unknown: I’m with my father in a suite at one of the hotels in the city.
Unknown: Thank you for the phone. And for… everything.
