“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” The lie tastes bitter. Nothing about this is okay.
He’s recovering too fast, shaking off the blow like it was nothing. I need my phone! Where did it fall?
There—across the room, screen glowing against the dark floor.
No time. He’s already moving again.
I shift Hannah higher, curling my body around hers as I run. One hand cups her head, protecting it. The other stretches toward the phone.
Almost there. Almost—
His hand locks around my arm like a vise.
Shit!
Terror floods my system. This is it. This is how it ends.
He drags me backward, his other arm wrapping around my waist. Hannah’s muffled cries vibrate through my chest. I press her face against me, one hand stroking her hair even as my own heart threatens to shatter.
“It’s okay, baby,” I whisper. Another lie. The biggest one yet.
We’re seventeen floors up. Alone. No one knows we’re in danger. No one’s coming to save us.
Four years.
That’s all we got. Four years of bedtime stories and preschool pickups and Sunday morning pancakes. It wasn’t enough. It will never be enough.
I’m sorry, Hannah.
I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep you safe.
The room tilts as he pulls me further into his grip. My daughter’s life is slipping through my fingers and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
This is my fault. All of it. If I’d never gotten involved with Nikolai, never stumbled into that world—
Hannah wouldn’t even exist.
The thought cuts deeper than any blade.
A tear escapes, hot against my cheek. My little girl. My whole world.
And I’ve failed her.
Chapter Five
Nikolai
A shipping and distribution yard is where it ended four years ago.
Now, it’s where things begin again.
Timur stares at me like I’m a ghost. He keeps his distance, hand twitching toward the gun at his hip. His eyes reflect what little light bleeds into this industrial graveyard—wide, disbelieving, searching my face for proof this is real.
I don’t blame him. Four years is a long time to mourn a lifelong friend. Long enough for the grief to calcify into something permanent. And now I’m standing here, breathing, alive—rendering every moment of his pain meaningless.
He looks different. Smaller, somehow, despite the muscle definition in his forearms where he’s rolled back his sleeves. He’s lost weight. New lines bracket his mouth, crease his forehead. Like the world chewed him up and spit him back out.
“How?” The word comes out strangled.
