Juliet doesn’t belong anywhere near this.
Not near me.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I pull it out like it might bite.
Her name lights up the screen.
Juliet: Still thinking about you. Is that weird? (sunflower emoji)
The worst timing.
The best timing.
The sunflower emoji does something to my ribs.
Cracks them. Expands them.
Makes it hard to breathe in the exact opposite way Oksana does.
Noah sees my face, softens. “Answer her.”
I can’t.
I want to.
God, I want to.
But my fingers tremble around the envelope, and the cold dread pooling in my stomach tells me one thing with brutal clarity:
Whatever this is?
Whatever Oksana wants?
It’s about to pull me under again.
And I don’t know how to keep Juliet out of the undertow.
I don’t open the envelope.
Just hold it.
Feel the weight of it.
Noah doesn’t move away.
He stands beside me at the counter, close enough that I can feel the steadiness rolling off him.
Warm. Human.
The opposite of everything that just walked through the door.
“Vitka?” he says quietly, testing the name the stranger used.
I flinch.
He notices.
