She didn't speak. Her heart was slamming against her ribs so hard she was certain it was audible, and her breath was fast and shallow and she was trying to control it and failing, because the anger had been replaced by something more primal, something her body understood before her mind caught up: they were not alone in this cabin.
His hand moved her. Backward. Slow. One step. Two. Her bare feet on the cold floor, each step a negotiation with the dark, and his body stayed in front of hers, always in front, and she could feel the weapon in his other hand, the weight of it changing his posture, the way his shoulder dropped when he raised it.
A sound.
Not from them. Not from Biscuit. From the front of the cabin, from the main room, from somewhere near the door. A creak. Wood settling under weight. The specific, unmistakable sound of a floorboard accepting a foot.
Someone was inside.
Her hand found the back of Alexei's shirt. Her fingers curled into the fabric, and the grip was the same grip from the first night, both fists in his coat, except that night she'd been pulling him closer and tonight she was holding on because the dark was enormous and the sound was real and someone was in the house.
The girl was afraid. He could hear it in her breathing, which was fast and ragged and poorly controlled. Fear had a sound, and hers was the sound of a small animal caught in the open, aware of the predator but unable to locate it. He found the sound beautiful. He always did.
Another creak. Closer. The main room was between them and the front door, and the study where they stood was at the back of the cabin, and the geography of the small house was suddenly the most important thing in the world: one way out through the main room, one window in the study that opened onto the mountain, and a man between them and every exit.
Alexei's grip on her wrist tightened. He was pulling her toward the window. She understood. The study window. The mountain. Out.
His mouth was at her ear. "When I open the window, you go through. You run downhill. You don't stop. You don't come back for me."
"No."
The word came out before she could think. Not brave. Automatic. The refusal of a woman whose body had decided something her mind hadn't been consulted on.
"Mia—"
"I'm not leaving you in a dark cabin with someone who kills people."
"This isn't a discussion."
"You're right. It isn't. I'm staying."
His grip on her wrist was painful now. She could feel the war in him, the same war she'd felt every time he'd tried to protect her by pushing her away, and this time the stakes weren't a closed door or a continent. This time the stakes were a man with a star-shaped pour pattern and a letter written in blood.
"You don't know what he—"
"Hello, Mia."
The voice came from the doorway of the study.
Warm. Easy. The voice of a man who made you trust him from the first sentence, who sat across an intake desk and answered questions with candor and brought coffee for the counselors and tipped his glass at the roulette table with a smile that cost nothing and opened everything.
Morgan.
The sound that came from her chest was involuntary. Not a scream. A recognition. The sound of a woman whose brain was rewriting every interaction, every session, every "same time Thursday" and every "I like you, Mia" and every warm, disarming smile, and the rewriting was happening at the speed of horror.
"I'd apologize for the power," Morgan continued. His voice was conversational. Relaxed. The voice of a man at a dinner party, not a man standing in a dark cabin with a weapon and a plan. "But the darkness is so much more honest, don't you think? We spend our lives in the light, performing. The dark strips all of that away. You become what you actually are."
She was shaking. Not the hero — the hero was still, the kind of still that meant danger, the kind that meant the man in front of you had been dangerous for a very long time and had simply been choosing not to demonstrate it. But the girl was shaking, and the shaking was exquisite.
"Alexei." Morgan's tone changed. Fractionally. Still warm. Still easy. But underneath it, something that recognized an equal. "I've been looking forward to meeting you properly. The clinicwas convenient, but it lacked intimacy. And this cabin is so much better. Your wife's phone has a tracker on it, did you know that? Very thorough of you. The problem with trackers is that they broadcast to whoever knows where to listen, and I have been listening for weeks."
Alexei didn't answer. His body hadn't moved. His breathing hadn't changed. The hand on her wrist had loosened, not from relaxation but from preparation, the way a man's grip adjusts when he's about to use his hands for something else.
"You read the letter," Morgan continued. "In Saint Petersburg. I was watching, of course. I'm always watching. You opened the evidence bag and you unfolded the paper and you read every word, and your face didn't change. Not even a little. I admired that. Most people react. You didn't. You just folded it and put it back and asked for a copy."
Mia's brain was working. Fast. Under the terror, under the adrenaline, the part of her that had spent weeks across a desk from this man was sorting through everything he'd told her during intake. Every detail. Every answer. The roulette. The aesthetics. The anticipation, not the result. The dopamine. She'd thought he was describing gambling. He'd been describing killing.
"The anticipation," she breathed. "That's what you told me. The moment before the ball drops."
