Adrik had to swallow twice before he could speak. His voice barely came out. “No. I need to get out of here, but I have to see my mother later today.”
“I can fly out if you want me to.”
“No. Not here. I don’t feel safe. I want to come home.”
“I want that too,” Hans said.
“What kind of job am I going to get?” Adrik whispered.
“Don’t worry about that. I have enough to support both of us. You can stay home.”
“That won’t work. I need a job, or my visa will expire. The plan was to move every thirty days if I couldn’t find work.”
“That’s the least of your worries. We’ll figure it out.”
Adrik opened his mouth to respond—then he heard footsteps.
Inside the house.
Slow. Heavy. Getting closer to his room.
His heart lurched.
Fuck. He didn’t have a weapon.
Who the hell was in the house?
Chapter Thirty
Hans
Warnemünde, Germany
Hans sat staring athis phone long after the line had gone dead.
Not ended—dead. No goodbye, no click, just silence swallowing Adrik’s voice mid-sentence. Hans checked the screen, half-expecting it to correct itself, to light up and prove this was some technical hiccup.
Nothing.
He thumbed the call button again. It rang. And rang. Then stopped.
He tried once more. Straight to nothing. No voicemail prompt. No polite recorded voice. Just absence.
Hans leaned back in his chair, the edge of the desk pressing into his ribs. His foot started tapping before he noticed it. He forced it still. It started again anyway.
Adrik never did this. Never. Even when he was irritated, even when he was in a rush—there was always a wait, a hang-on, something.
Hans unlocked his phone, scrolling through recent calls as if the answer might be hiding there. The office felt too quiet now. The radiator clicked. A student laughed somewhere down the hall. Ordinary sounds, all of them suddenly wrong.
Maybe the signal dropped.
Maybe his phone died.
Maybe—
Hans stood abruptly, chair legs scraping against the floor. His hand shook just enough that he noticed it when he tried dialing again.
Still nothing.
