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I went upstairs to my doorway. All I could do was try to jiggle the loose lock and hope to get it open. My heartbeat thudded in my ears as the door swung open. I expected Kirill to know where I lived. He’d been stalking me, but I’d thought I could outrun him. I never expected him to be so far ahead.
The apartment was empty, dust motes dancing in the light streaming through the windows. It was bare and impossible to imagine this had been home only a few days ago. A shitty, unsafe wreck of a home, but a home, nonetheless.Myhome. Everything I’d owned had been inside these thin, stained walls. Now it was all gone.
The sound of plastic vibrating on soft wood floated to me.I wandered toward it, feeling like I had entered a Twilight zone episode. A phone, the same make and model I lobbed into the river ten minutes ago, sat on the floor. I picked it up, my finger flicking the answer symbol before I could decide it was a terrible idea.
“I see you met my brother.” Kirill’s rich, warm voice said in my ear.
I clamped my hand to my head and turned, expecting him to suddenly be looming over my shoulder like a demon all in black. “Yeah, good to see psychotic tendencies run in the family.”
“What can I say? The apples didn’t fall far from the tree,” Kirill said. “Now, if you haven’t realized yet, you don’t live there anymore, Molly. Come back now before you piss me off. You won’t like me when I’m angry, Princess.”
“I don’t like you now,” I stated flatly.
Kirill chuckled. “And I thought you loved me. You’ve become mercurial with age, Mallory.”
“And you’ve become deranged. You must be high if you think I’ll willingly come to you. Dream on. You’ve had your sick game. It’s over.” My voice was steady, even if my fingers were trembling.
“I don’t think so. I think the game is just beginning. You’ve no place to live, no job, no friends to run to, no money, no hope, no safe place that can hide you from me. I’m all you have left, Molly. And as for expecting you to come willingly . . . how is your mother nowadays?”
Terror made me dizzy, and the urge to scratch and claw at something made me shake. “Don’t touch her. Don’t go anywhere near her.” I cut my words off, knowing they were futile. Of course, he was going for Mara. It was an instant win.
“Come and stop me. Better be quick. 10thand Park, right?”
“You’re wasting your time threatening me. I’m not scared of you,” I lied.
Kirill tutted in my ear. “Don’t be boring, Molly. Of course, you are.”
The dial tone sounded in my ear, and I stood there numbly for a long moment. The urge to flee and the urge to run to Mara were equally strong. But going to Mara meant letting Kirill catch me.
I gripped the phone hard and let out an ugly cry of frustration, wishing I could pound something into the ground, preferably his face. I blinked away tears and stared around the place I’d lived for nearly a year. Every single thing I’d owned was gone. I had nothing and nowhere to go.
He was right. I held the phone in my hand, hard and real.
A thought flickered around the edge of my subconscious, slowly forming.
I dialed the number for the Blue Rabbit with shaking fingers, praying Theo was there.
“Girl, what’s up? I heard you quit, and you haven’t been answering your phone. You left your last shift with the dangerous-looking hunk of beef—”
“Listen, I don’t have time to catch you up, but I promise I will. Are you still seeing that cop?”
* * *
I creptthrough the hallways of Grateful Dawn nursing home, jumping at every sound. It was after visiting hours, but I knew that wouldn’t stop Kirill. My mother’s room was up ahead, and the open doorway yawned darkly. Was he already there? Did it matter?
I couldn’t leave her alone with him.
Despite the last twenty-four hours, things still didn’t add up. I couldn’t accept Kirill Lewis’s father was the man Henry had been running from this entire time. I couldn’t believe the boy I’d loved so desperately had chased me, not to be reunited, but to take revenge.
I stopped by the door. A small flare of orange fire was the only sign I wasn’t alone with my mother. The scent of smoky black cherry filled the room, and my eyes gradually adjusted to see his silhouette, seated in a chair beside Mara’s sleeping body.
“Tell me what happened that night,” I asked the shadowy specter.
He smoked, and only the soft sound of crinkling paper filled the silence. “I’d have thought Nikolai covered that.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“Why? You think it’ll change anything? It changes nothing. I went to my father for you. I agreed to his terms for you. He shattered my leg so I wouldn’t mourn my change of direction. And then I dragged myself home to find you gone.”
