She’s bigger than me, wearing a dress, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t put me on the floor if she wanted to.
I choose to sit.
***
Ivan drops me off at the townhouse and leaves without a word.
Taillights disappearing down the street while I stand there with the door half-open staring at the house like it belongs to someone else.
Maksim isn’t here.
The silence tells me that before I even step inside.
No boots by the door. No glass on the counter. No furious man sitting somewhere in the dark waiting to decide whether to scream at me or drag me into his lap and act like that fixes anything.
Just quiet.
I lock the door behind me and stand there for a second, listening to my own breathing.
Santo recognized me.
That thought has been chewing through me since the Amato house.
He recognized me.
He looked at me too long, too carefully, and I know he remembers Gabriel’s house. I know he remembers me as the girl behind the curtain who should not have been there. Maybe he already told Maksim. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he’s waiting. Maybe Maksim already knows and that’s why he left me here instead of dragging me back into another fight.
My pulse jumps.
I need to go.
Now.
If I’m leaving, I need something.
The thought comes dark and fast.
Something for Gabriel.
Something that buys me enough time to survive the part where Santo Amato may have already signed my death warrant without saying a word.
I go to Maksim’s home office first.
It feels wrong being in here without him.
Because everything in this house feels like him—clean, expensive wood, the low smell of smoke and spice and whatever dark thing lives under his skin. His office is the worst of it. His desk. His books. His chaos. His control.
I start opening drawers anyway.
Paper.
Receipts.
A gun magazine.
Nothing.
Then the lower cabinet. Books. Not novels or anything he’d read.Ledgers.
