Of course he’d say exactly the thing that gets under my skin. NotI miss you. Notplease talk to me. Not some dramatic declaration.
You’re safe.
I set the phone down like it might bite me and turn toward the coffee maker because caffeine is the only stable relationship in my life. By the time it finishes brewing, my hands have steadied a little. I pour a cup, wrap both palms around the mug, and tell myself I am absolutely not going to call him.
A knock cracks through the house so sharply that hot coffee sloshes over my fingers.
My whole body goes rigid.
Nobody comes here. Nobody knows this address except my father and Nikolai and now, apparently, the Andretti family. My eyes dart to the kitchen drawer where I keep the mace. Then to the front door, where the deadbolt is still thrown.
“Nat?”
The tension bleeds out of my shoulders so fast I almost sag.
Luca.
Another knock, harder this time. “Natalia, please. I know you’re in there.”
I set the mug down with a clack that sounds much louder than it should in the stillness of the kitchen. My pulse has gone haywire, slamming at my throat hard enough to make swallowing difficult.
I walk to the door. My hand goes to the deadbolt.
I don’t turn it.
“I’m not opening it,” I call back.
Silence for half a beat. Then, “Okay.”
“If you came here to apologize again,” I say, “save your breath.”
“I’m sorry,” he says immediately, voice rough through the door. “And I know that doesn’t do shit right now.”
My eyes sting. Annoying. Very annoying.
“Then why are you here?”
There’s a pause. Long enough that I know he’s choosing his words carefully.
“Because my uncle already knows about this house,” he says. “He’s been here once. And I told my brother I’m not doing it. That means this situation won’t stay buried for long, and I don’t know how fast the fallout is going to move. You may not be safe here alone.”
The coffee turns to acid in my stomach. The house suddenly feels less like shelter and more like a target with a cute coastal paint job.
“So, you’re saying they’ll send someone else.”
“I’m saying I don’t know what they’ll do, and until I do, you being here alone is a problem.”
I swallow. My throat clicks. “So you didn’t come here to win me back. You came here because you think I’m going to get killed.”
“Both,” he says, and at least he doesn’t pretend. “I came because both of those things are true and I couldn’t sit in that hotel room and let you be here alone.”
Silence stretches between us with the door as its spine.
“I know you’re sorry,” I say. “I believe you’re sorry. That’s not the question.”
“Then what is?”
I’ve been turning this over since somewhere around thirty thousand feet, with nothing to do but sit with my choices.
