My jaw tightens so hard I feel it in my teeth, but my voice stays even. “Good. That’s exactly what I wanted to confirm.”
“Oh, yes, yes, we’ll continue to take excellent care of her.”
“I’m sure you will,” I say before hanging up.
The moment the call ends, all the civility in my tone evaporates, replaced by the heat sitting low and sharp in my chest.
“She left early,” I say quietly, almost to myself. “And she lied about it.”
“Did she sound sick on the phone?” Mikhail asks.
I shake my head once. “She sounded like she was trying not to be caught.”
Mikhail exhales sharply. “Fuck.”
Exactly.
I head for the door, chest tight with something that feels like a mix of fury and fear, and I hate the second part of it more. I don’t get afraid, but the second someone looks at her the wrong way, touches her, thinks about taking her from me, something shifts in me so violently I can barely think straight.
Mikhail follows close behind as we move through the house and out to the car.
“You think she’s in danger?” he asks as I slide into the driver’s seat.
“I think I don’t know where she is,” I say, starting the engine, “and that’s enough.”
We pull onto the street, and I replay the sound of her voice, strained while trying to sound normal. There was no panic or immediate danger, but she was hiding something. And I can’t shake the memory of the SUV I assigned to follow her, the one she accepted too easily when I showed her in the garage. If she walked out of the hospital without checking whether my men were behind her… or worse, if someone else was behind her…
My grip tightens on the wheel.
Mikhail glances over. “You think she met someone.”
The thought hisses through me like a blade.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But she wouldn’t lie unless she had a reason.”
“Good reason or bad reason?”
I clench my jaw. “Either one puts her at risk.”
We pass through the left turn at full speed, tires humming against the road, and I feel myself slipping into the state I go into before something breaks—the hyper-focused silence where all I can hear is my pulse and the faint echo of Kira’s voice.
I thought keeping her close would make things easier. That once she was here, under my roof, under my protection, everything would settle. But she has this way of doing the one thing I don’t expect, the thing that knocks me off balance, the thing that reminds me she isn’t just another piece on the board for me to move around. She’s something else entirely, dangerous in a way I didn’t prepare for.
I press harder on the gas.
“Call the men near the hospital,” I tell Mikhail. “I want to know if anyone saw her leave. I want to know who followed her. I want locations, cameras, descriptions—everything.”
He nods, already dialing. “And if we find someone?”
“If they touched her,” I say, my voice low, steady, certain, “they’re dead.”
I turn the next corner, my pulse heavy in my throat, because I know the truth even before we find her. Kira didn’t walk away from safety for nothing. She’s going to someone, or someone is coming for her. And whoever it is, I’ll get to them first.
Kira
The place Lucas texted is an old side street behind a row of closed stores, the kind of area that looks empty even when people are around, and for a moment I stand there with my hands shoved deep in my pockets, wondering what the hell I’m doing and why it feels like my whole chest is trying to collapse in on itself.
I keep glancing around because it’s getting darker, the air colder, and every sound hits my nerves like a warning, but then I seehim,leaning against a wall a few meters away, his head down, his shoulders hunched, looking like he hasn’t slept in days.
