My fingers close around the first one and my stomach drops.
Smash and Sugar.
The second.
Exile.
I freeze for half a second, staring at the covers, at the tabs shoved between pages, at the numbers and names inside that I don’t even need to fully understand to know this matters.
This is enough. Maybe more than enough.
I hold the books tight as I head to the bedroom.
The room looks wrong without him in it.
The credit card is still where I threw it earlier. My phone still on the bed. I stare at both.
Then I pick up the card and set it on the bed too.
He can keep his money.
His clothes.
His gifts.
His fucking claim.
My gaze catches on the closet, on all the things he bought me, and for one weak second I think about taking some of it.
The boots. The leather jacket. Something warm. Something useful.
Something that still smells like him.
My breath catches.
No.
I don’t let myself touch anything.
I grab a bag from the closet shove the ledgers in there and zip the bag shut and leave with exactly what I came in with.
By the time I’m three blocks away, I already know walking was a stupid idea.
My hip stings every time my stride pulls wrong. My throat feels dry. The bag strap is digging into my shoulder. The city is too loud, too big, too alive around me, and every step farther from the townhouse feels less like freedom and more like the kind of mistake you only recognize once it’s too late to turn around.
Maybe Santo didn’t say anything.
Maybe he didn’t remember me.
Maybe Maksim would’ve been furious, but not—
I cut that thought off.
Not what?
Not kill me?
Not hand me over to Gabriel?
