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“It doesn’t matter,” he murmurs, pressing another slow kiss to my mouth.

“I heard my name.”

A muscle tics hard in his jaw. “The man who hired me to find Viktoriya wants to speak with you. Her father damn well demanded to speak to you.” He caresses my cheekbone, his eyes dark and fierce. “You don’t have to. You’re not going to. Nobody demands anything of my woman.”

Viktoriya.

I’ve been so deep inside my own survival that I haven’t thought about her. Not properly. Not in the way she deserves. Somewhere out there is a father who hired Zevran to bring his daughter home, and he still doesn’t know what happened to her and what she went through. What those hellish days were like for her, and the terrible way they ended.

And then there’s Emily. The memory arrives like a splash of cold water. I held her in my lap while she died on a concrete floor. Emily’s family doesn’t know where she is or how she ended up there, or that at the end, someone was holding her hand.

I’ve been eating quiche, trying on cashmere, and letting a beautiful, dangerous man spoil me senseless, and I haven’t thought about either of them once.

The guilt is a hot flush from my sternum to my throat.

“I want to talk to him,” I say.

Zevran’s voice is flat and cold. “No. Dragan was out of line even asking. I’m not letting anyone drag you back into that darkness.”

I feel the old reflex, the one that reminds me to make myself small. Don’t push. Don’t make him angry. Let it go.

But I can’t let it go.

“Zevran.” My voice comes out steady, which surprises me. “If I speak with Dragan, Viktoriya’s father will know what those days were like for her, and he can be proud that she fought back. And Emily—” I stop. Swallow. “Emily’s family doesn’t even know she’s dead. Someone needs to tell them.”

His hands are on my waist, and he squeezes firmly, pulling me closer against him. “I looked into Emily’s family. They know.”

“They do? How?”

“The police went into that place after you and I left. They found her. They found Viktoriya as well, buried in a shallow grave in the back garden. It wasn’t hard for the police to discover their identities because they were reported missing. Everyone who was taken was reported missing.” He hesitates, and then closes his mouth, anger flickering across his face.

“What were you going to say?” I ask, reaching up to touch his tense jaw.

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

“Zevran. Please tell me.”

“Everyone was reported missing.” His chest rises and falls with a heavy breath. His grip tightens around me like he’s afraid I’ll slip away. “Everyone except you.”

I wasn’t reported missing? Nearly two weeks, and Troy didn’t make a single call, file a single report, or knock on a single door? I’d vanished off the face of the earth, and the man I was married to didn’t even tell anyone I was gone.

I’ve always known that I didn’t matter to him. But knowing and knowing are different things entirely.

“He didn’t even—?” I stop and press my lips together. There’s a hot pressure building behind my eyes that I refuse to give in to, because Troy Banks has taken enough from me and he is not getting my tears in Zevran’s bed as well.

“I want to talk to Dragan,” I say firmly. “Tomorrow. I’m going.”

Zevran watches me, his gaze intense, searching every inch of my face. “Are you sure, printsessa?”

“I’m sure. It’s the right thing to do.”

Zevran tucks my hair behind my ear, and he gazes down at me like I’m his entire world. “When I found you, you were afraid because you broke a coffeepot. You couldn’t even tell me you had a broken arm.” His thumb traces my jaw, and he says in tones of pure wonder, “Look at you now.”

The admiration in his voice warms me down to my toes. “Viktoriya deserves this much.”

“Then we’ll go tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll arrange it with Dragan. And I’ll be in the room with you the whole time. You don’t need to answer anything you don’t want to answer.”

I smile up at him. “Thank you.”