Page 210 of Mile High Ruin

She comes back toward the door. “He wants to know who you are.”

I raise one eyebrow. “What are you telling him?”

“That you’re a friend.”

The word almost makes me smile. “A friend.”

“Don’t enjoy this.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I have been called worse.”

She gives me a murderous look and returns to his bedside. A moment later Ethan gestures weakly toward me. Apparently I’m being summoned.

Sloane looks like she would rather disconnect one of the machines herself.

I enter.

Ethan watches me approach with surprising focus. “So,” he says, voice faint but still carrying amusement, “you’re Vadim.”

Sloane goes very still. She looks horrified.

I look back at Ethan. “That appears to be me.”

He smiles. “My sister hasn’t been able to stop talking about you.”

Sloane’s mouth falls open. “Ethan.”

“She has a huge crush, I think.”

For the first time tonight, something genuinely amused breaks through me.

I smile.

Sloane looks betrayed. “You are literally in a hospital bed and somehow still finding ways to humiliate me.”

“I’m sick, not dead.”

“Ethan.”

He looks at me again.

“How did you know it was me?” I ask.

Sloane turns sharply. “He didn’t. I told him⁠—”

“No, you didn’t.”

She stops.

I look at Ethan. “She never said my name.”

His smile widens faintly. “I can tell.”

“From what?”