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“Better safe than sorry,” I agree. My stepfather says that to Neil and me all the time. This, too, is so bizarre. A matter of days into this world I’ve been literally dragged into, and I already know Leonid is full of shit. There’s nothing safe about the life he’s chosen.

“You’re being very quiet,” he notes. It sounds like an allegation.

“I’m a quiet person.”

“Are you,” isn’t really a question.

“What, your invasion of my privacy didn’t tell you that?”

“Apparently, you’re a smartass, too.”

I’m not, typically. I’m beginning to think he brings it out in me. I cluck my tongue at him, as Exhibit A. “Is that any way to talk to the woman to whom you owe your life, Leonid?”

“Didn’t you hear my doctor say I should conserve my strength?”

To my chagrin, I fail to contain the laugh that bubbles out my mouth. “You mean your sister-in-law?”

“Don’t be sexist, Meera,” Leonid taunts. “She’s still a doctor.”

“I wish she’d kept you sedated,” I sigh.

“Liar.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. Pointedly, I refuse to glance back at him, even though I can feel his eyes on me like a touch. Logic reasons that I don’t know what his touch feels like. Then argues, mortifyingly, that he knows what mine is like, all thanks to my apparent lack of impulse control—something that had never been a problem for me until I crossed paths with this man. The only small mercy is that I haven’t been able to deduce just how much he remembers of the brief interludes of consciousness when Yulia had him sedated. How much of what happened did the drugs let his memory keep?

The convoy of cars turns into the underground garage of an ornate building downtown. It’s telling that it’s got a name instead of a number. The extravagance should be a given, taking into account the SUVs that peel off to flanking positions. When I park and hop out of the vehicle, I catch a man in an immaculate suit (that probably costs more than the fourteen hundred dollars it would’ve taken to get my Civic fixed) already holding the elevator for us. There’s another, similarly-trussed man who idles intimidatingly at the garage entrance we’ve come through.

“Home sweet home,” Leonid grumbles. The overtly sour note makes me do a doubletake.

But I say nothing. I fall into step with him, thinking about how I wouldn’t mind a file on him in return. Know thy enemy and all, I reason with the urge.

The man in the suit doesn’t so much as spare me a glance. He only nods to Leonid and presses a key-fob into a waiting slot before he steps out. Leonid hits the button at the very top of the panel.

We hurtle upward.

***

“You have a beautiful home,” I say politely, out of habit.

I don’t know what I was expecting. It should’ve been exactly what the elevator doors open to, most likely. Yet the sleek, expensive trappings of the enormous penthouse apartment don’t fit him. Something is amiss. That doesn’t make sense to me.

It’s a beautiful space. There’s dark marble and floor-to-ceiling city views as far as the eye can see. The furniture could’ve been freshly picked out of a Bernhardt catalog. The whole setting is glossy enough to belong between the pages of a magazine.

Leonid scoffs a harsh sound I realize, belatedly, was a laugh. “Oh, do I?” he teases. He makes his way into the main living area and eases himself down onto the grey, suede sofa. I find myself following him.

“It’s very—”

“Go on.”

“—clean,” I finish, glaring at him.

“It’s soulless,” he says. “You can say it. It has all the warmth of a dental practice, Meera, and we both know it.”

My smile is as helpless as it is sheepish. Relief and amusement braid together in my chest, despite how caught I feel, when I’ve tried to be polite and he’s being wonderfully candid. “Okay, so I liked the church better,” I admit.

“Me too,” he says softly.

I steal a cautious glance at him. “You can’t live there instead? Or somewhere like it?”