My chest tightens like a vacuum, making it hard to breathe. I pause halfway to the door, trying to catch my breath. The thought of something happening to Augusto is physically debilitating. The realization shocks me: I’m not sure I could survive if something happened to him.
I glance back once at Paige, then I step into the hallway.
The house feels different. The air heavy and charged. A door is open somewhere, letting the cool night seeping in.
Everywhere is still, only the breeze running through creating any kind of movement. Then my heart stops.
Up ahead, at the end of the hall, there’s a shape. The same shape I saw cut across the wall.
I want to run back to my room, lock the door and cover Paige with my body, but my feet won’t move.
Moonlight slices across his face and I shiver at the sight of his eyes. They’re pale and cold, like polished ice. He has a presence I’ve never felt before—like he could command the earth if he wanted to.
Slowly, but surely, fragments of memory piece themselves together in my scrambling mind.
I’ve seen this person before.
My bristling body knows it too.
He’s been in my home—a guest of my husband’s. It was a long time ago and it was fleeting but definite. I recognized the name when Augusto mentioned it but I couldn’t place it. I couldn’t figure out why it was so familiar.
Now I can.
It’s Nikolai Morozov.
A chill travels down my spine.
What was it Augusto had said? He suspects Morozov is the man behind the entire deal. And now he’s here, which can only mean one thing: Augusto isn’t coming back. He’s the threat that has been eliminated, and we’re the unfinished business.
As that stark understanding dawns on me, Morozov smiles.
“We meet again, Erin,” he says softly, his accent thick and recognizable.
My spine locks, terror flooding my veins. But something else infuses me too. Something primal and fierce and maternal. I feel like a lioness guarding a cub. He gets to Paige over my dead body.
“Stay exactly where you are,” I say, my voice shaking but loud enough to echo down the hall.
His smile widens and he starts a slow walk toward me, making a mockery of my demand.
“Don’t come any closer,” I try again.
He doesn’t listen. Just keeps walking toward me. I spread my body across the door to my daughter’s room. My muscles are solid with tension.
“Where is Augusto?” I ask.
“Ah, yournewhusband,” Morozov says with a calculated grin. “How quickly you forget your old one.”
He stops a few feet away and tucks his hand into an inside pocket of his leather jacket. My eyes train on the movement.
“He was always so good to you, Erin. And this is how you treat him.” His features contort into a backdrop of disappointment, but it doesn’t penetrate my armor.
“He gave you a rich life, a beautiful daughter, a wonderful home. And you leave him. For what?”
“He beat me,” I reply, not that this monster deserves any explanation. “The man who invited you into our home was evil. He would have killed our daughter.” I tilt my chin. “But then, you knew that, didn’t you? You’re cut from the same cloth. You would have done the same.”
He shrugs a shoulder and pulls out his hand. A flash of silver glitters in the moonlight and my breath catches.
He’s holding a blade.
