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“Your colleague will disguise Yan so he can keep an eye on Lia.”
“He can’t keep an eye on her as he is?”
“No. She knows his face. It might remind her of me and complicate her state. He needs to look different and have another background.”
“What do you want him to be?”
“A homeless person. Put Lia in the shelter that’s under our protection and make sure to tell Richard that she’s to be treated with care, but hide her identity from him. He’s never met her before, so it shouldn’t be hard.”
“Boss, are you sure about this?”
“Yes, Kolya. I’ll let her believe the lie. If she wants to be Winter, so be it.”
Because sooner or later, her path will be a one-way road to me.
Adrian
A month later
It never gets any easier.
Not the part about watching from afar.
Or the part about going to an empty home without her.
Or the part where Jeremy asks me when his mother is coming back.
I tell myself it’s for her sake, for her mental health, and to kill whatever reason she had for jumping off the cliff.
I tell myself that she’ll remember me, that she’ll one day recognize Yan, then tell him to take her home.
Hasn’t happened so far.
If anything, she seems to be more invested in her fake life as Winter.
I hate that fucking name and the woman behind it who’s still comatose in my guest house. If Lia hadn’t met her, she wouldn’t have jumped off that cliff and we wouldn’t be here.
Though, it was probably only a matter of time before Lia attempted her escape. Meeting Winter was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, not the first.
What I hate the most about this situation are the conditions she’s living in. My Lenochka isn’t supposed to sleep in shelters or on the streets. She shouldn’t be wearing charity clothes and torn gloves.
She shouldn’t be homeless.
Her home is with me and Jeremy.
Every day, I battle the urge to whisk her up and take her with me, to drive her to our house where she was always meant to be.
Something stops me, though.
The change in her.
Unlike before, Lia’s often smiling now and even laughing with Yan—or Larry, as she knows him. Watching her interactions with him give me different urges, like strangling the life out of him.
I don’t like that she laughs with him yet doesn’t even remember me. I hate that she bonded with him in no time but had only panic attacks when I was by her side at the hospital.
But at the same time, I like that she’s more carefree, that her demons aren’t getting the better of her.
Yan also mentioned that she hasn’t had a single nightmare since the day she became homeless.
