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She points an accusing finger at me. “You went through my things!”

“I did,” I agree, unbothered.

“You—” She undoes the garment bag in harsh, hasty movements. A matching set of underwear falls out first. If looks could kill, I’d be in an urn. “You went into my underwear drawer?”

“You’d think you have bigger problems than that right now.”

“Being imprisoned in a creepy church and having a creep rifle through my panties aren’t mutually exclusive problems,” she retorts.

Why this, out of everything, grates on my nerves, I can’t say. But I question, “You think this place is creepy?”

From the look on her face, it’s evident that she doesn’t know why this is what I choose to pick at out of everything she’s said. Whatever she sees on my face in turn makes her sigh. “No. I think it’s stunning and like it feels sacred despite being converted,” she concedes. “But you’re still creepy.”

I nod, acquiescing. “Fair enough. Just don’t talk shit about the church.”

“Weird,” Meera adds. “And creepy. Get out. You aren’t watching me change clothes.”

I gesture towards the garment bag. “There’s also a bag of toiletries in there,” I add, and turn on my heel. Including her birth control, though telling her that is unnecessary. “You’ve got twenty minutes.”

Walking out, I pull the door shut behind myself.

***

There’s nothing remotely remarkable about Harrison Avenue High School. It’s just a red brick structure like any other, wedged into the South End block like an afterthought. It makes no sense for Meera to look at it with such longing in her eyes—but she does, anyway.

I don’t believe she thinks about it when her hand reaches for the door handle. “Hey,” I halt her, my hand wrapping around her elbow. “There are some rules to this, before you get any ideas.”

Frankly, I should’ve laid down the law before I ever led her to the Range Rover. But she’d had a skip in her step on her way out the door. She’d polished off her breakfast in the span of minutes, and her eyes had been bright with something that looked a lot like hope. I have to admit to myself that I hadn’t wanted to snuff it out. I took no pleasure in breaking fragile things, no matter what Meera Gallagher thinks.

She turns away from the door with a frown. “Rules?”

“Yeah. Rules,” I repeat firmly. I hold out a hand to the driver’s seat, where my driver and primary bodyguard, Harvey, awaits. He places a black box in my waiting palm. I open it in front of Meera and point to the contents. “You are going to put in this mic and this earpiece. I have men stationed all around this fucking block, so if you try to run, it won’t end well. You have a matter of minutes to get through this. You’re to go to the principal’s office and make up whatever emergency you need to. Tell them to arrange a substitute. You don’t know how long you’ll need to be out, but hope it isn’t long. You get out as soon as you can. You break a single rule, and I will put the bullet in the fucking skull of whoever you break it with. Do you understand me, Meera?”

I fucking hate it. I hate the way her eyes go wide as fucking saucers, and her bottom lip trembles, stricken and shocked, like she doesn’t know what to do with any part of this. It’s getting more and more impossible not to just believe her innocence. No one can be this good at faking it. Can they?

Forcefully, I repeat myself, “Meera. Do. You. Understand me?”

Her hands knot together in her lap. She blinks hard—and, at last, nods. “I understand you, Leonid,” she mutters bitterly.

“Good.” I lean across the backseat, ignoring the way her body stiffens over my proximity—and push down the neckline of her deep navy blouse, snapping the tiny microphone attachment onto the strap of her bra. She’d washed herself up with soap and a washcloth in the bathroom. I breathe her in, and she smells like sweet hibiscus. I do us both a favor and just drop the fucking earpiece in her palm. “Now go, before I remember why this is an awful goddamn idea.”

At least it isn’t an idea I’ve hidden from my brothers. Particularly since I’d framed it as a way to see if there’s anyone who’ll be tracking our movements, which isn’t untrue.

I don’t miss the caustic hiss of “Asshole,” Meera mutters under her breath on the way out. It makes no sense, why it pulls a grin to my lips.

A grin that widens when I pluck my own mic out of the box and connect the two. The device transmits my voice right into her ear when I drawl, “You use that language around little kids?” I tease. The grin widens when she trips over her own feet, still walking up to the doors.

“Bite me,” she says, confirming both the mic and the earpiece are working just fine.

I staunch a chuckle, and lean back against the headrest, settling in to listen. The microphone picks up enough chatter: ambient noise spills down the line, between the CLANG! of lockers opening and shutting, the patter of discordant footsteps, and the overlapping chatter of way too many teenagers in way too small a space. The noise envelops her like a pashmina. She thrives within its hold. I catch snippets of greeting that float past the mic, like the security guard who chirps Morning, Miss G. There’s a routine to it, these in-built habits. Being in the Bratva is nothing like this. I’ve never had the same day twice. I’ve never even considered wanting to either.

Still, her world intrigues me. I understand a little better why she’s been so stricken by mine. The worlds are as different as two could be.

On the other side of the transmitter, Meera pushes through a door and the noise quietens. I assume it’s the administrative office. A woman’s voice greets her. I listen, enraptured, as Meera navigates the situation with more ease than I would’ve initially given her credit for. She gives an illness to her paternal grandmother, which is an interesting bet to make. It tells me that she suspects her mother would reach out to the school, but her father won’t. That she doesn’t want to accidentally curse someone still alive, since the dossier Miron gave me on her included family history. Meera’s paternal grandmother died before she was even conceived.

Maybe I’m reading too much into every minute choice she makes—yet her choices don’t seem coincidental to me.

Definitely not when she sounds so earnest while she apologizes profusely for leaving them in the lurch. She says she’s left materials in her classroom, that’ll help any substitute teacher out in her absence.