He turns, finally. Eyes on mine. Steady. Calm. Like I’m not asking something life-altering.
He sets the plate on the counter. Walks toward me.
Every step is measured. Quiet. The way a man like that moves… like he’s always five seconds from violence.
He stops just short of the couch.
And says without blinking, “The man who saved your life.”
I stare up at him, throat dry.
“But if you’re asking about the guy I killed—” He nods toward the door, as if the body’s still out there waiting. “That one was sent to make you disappear.”
Beat.
My heart stutters. “Me?”
“Yeah,” he says, almost bored. “Turns out someone wants you dead, Mary Sullivan.”
The words hit me like ice water.
Someone wants me dead.
I start shaking. Full-body earthquake shaking. The kind where your teeth chatter and your vision goes spotty.
“I don’t—” My voice cracks. “I don’t understand.”
He watches me fall apart with the same expression he’d use to check the stock market. Clinical. Detached.
“Dave Thornton was laundering money for the Bratva,” he says simply. “Russian mafia. You flagged accounts that weren’t supposed to be flagged. Now they think you know too much.”
My breath comes in short, sharp bursts. “I don’t know anything.”
“Doesn’t matter what you know. Matters what they think you know.”
I try to stand. My legs give out immediately. I collapse back onto the couch, the oversized shirt riding up my thighs.
“This is insane.” My voice is hoarse. “I work at a bank. I process deposits. I help old ladies reset their passwords.”
“And you accidentally stumbled into a money laundering operation worth millions.” His voice drops lower, darker. “Congratulations. You’re now a liability.”
The room spins. I press my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the spinning.
“I want to go home.”
“No.”
The word cuts through the air like a blade. Final. Absolute.
I look up at him. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean, you’re not going anywhere.” He crosses his arms, and I notice the scars on his forearms; jagged lines that look like they have stories I don’t want to hear. “Your old life? It’s over. The moment you walked into that laundromat, it ended.”
My chest tightens. “You can’t just—”
“Can’t what? Keep you alive?” His eyes turn colder. “Because that’s what this is,printsessa.I’m the only thing standing between you and a bullet in the head.”
The pet name makes my skin crawl and burn at the same time.
