Chương 2
For a moment there was only rain and faint electrical hiss.
Then a man’s voice said, “Nice hair, Elena.”
Her hand stopped moving.
Seven years vanished.
A kitchen in Maryland.
A coffee cup breaking against tile.
A patrol belt on a chair.
Garrett Dane standing in a doorway while Elena tried not to look at the service pistol resting beside his keys.
She had once thought fear would feel dramatic when it mattered.
It did not.
It felt procedural.
Where were the exits.
Where was the knife.
Where was Lucian.
Had the chain held.
Was the fire escape clear.
Could Garrett see her now.
Her eyes moved toward the blinds.
A dark building stood across the alley, windows mostly black.
She stepped away from the glass.
“Garrett.”
A soft exhale came through the phone.
Almost pleased.
“You still recognize me.”
Lucian watched her.
Elena said nothing.
Garrett continued, “You should have stayed gone.”
The line disconnected.
Elena lowered the phone.
Lucian pushed himself away from the wall.
Pain bent him briefly at the waist. He waited for it to pass.
“He found me,” Elena said.
Lucian looked toward the apartment door as footsteps returned to the third-floor hallway.
Slow ones now.
Unhurried.
More than two people.
He straightened behind her despite the fresh blood spreading through his abdominal dressing.
“Then he picked the wrong night.”
Elena looked at him.
“No.”
Lucian’s eyes shifted to her.
“No?”
“If those men belong to Garrett, and whoever shot you followed you here, then this is not one problem.”
The footsteps stopped outside her apartment.
Elena switched off the kitchen light.
The room fell into a mixture of warm bedside glow and blue streetlight.
Lucian studied her for one second.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“Think faster.”
“I think faster when people stop bleeding on my floor.”
The door handle moved.
Once.
Carefully.
Lucian’s expression almost became a smile.
Not because he enjoyed it.
Because something had been confirmed.
“They’re testing the lock.”
Elena lowered herself beside the counter.
“How many enemies do you have?”
“Currently?”
She looked at him.
“That is not a reassuring answer.”
The handle stopped.
A faint scrape came from the hall.
Then nothing.
Elena waited.
Lucian waited.
Thirty seconds stretched longer than the last seven years.
At last, footsteps moved away.
Not toward the stairs.
Toward the far end of the corridor.
Elena whispered, “Fire escape.”
Lucian shook his head.
“They’ll have someone outside.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I would.”
There was no vanity in the answer.
That made it worse.
Elena looked at him fully for the first time since he had regained consciousness.
He had arrived at her window at 1:26 a.m.
She had been eating cereal over the sink after a twelve-hour shift because washing a bowl felt unreasonable. She heard metal groan on the fire escape, assumed a drunk neighbor had climbed onto the wrong landing, and opened the curtain with every intention of telling someone to get lost.
Lucian had collapsed against the window glass.
He had been soaked, bleeding and furious about it.
He had pointed a gun at her with a hand that could barely keep it level.
“Open it.”
Elena had stared at the muzzle.
Then at the blood.
Then back at him.
“No.”
His face had shown genuine surprise.
A strange thing to remember now.
“You’re a nurse,” he had said.
She had still been wearing scrubs.
“You’re observant.”
“I need help.”
“You have a gun.”
“I also have a hole in me.”
“Put the gun down.”
He had.
Not willingly.
But he had.
That decision was the only reason he was now alive enough to disagree with her.
Elena crouched beside him and peeled the edge of his dressing back.
He inhaled through his nose.
The stitches remained intact, but fresh blood seeped from one end of the wound.
“You tore it.”
“I crawled under a bed.”
“You did it enthusiastically.”
“They were looking for me.”
“They were looking for me too.”
That silenced him.
Elena taped fresh gauze over the seepage.
Lucian’s gaze lingered on her face.
“Who is Garrett?”
“My ex-husband.”
“You said you lived with a cop.”
“I was trying to avoid a biography.”
“He put a phone under your sink.”
“Apparently.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Fourteen months.”
“And you never saw it?”
“I don’t inventory the underside of my plumbing.”
Lucian looked toward the cabinet.
“He had access.”
“Yes.”
“He still does?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Lucian noticed.
Elena hated that he noticed.
She stood.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t a masculinity question.”
“I can walk.”
“You almost passed out reaching the hallway.”
“I said I can. I didn’t say well.”
That was the first thing he had said that sounded remotely human.
Elena looked toward the door.
“What happens if your people come looking for you?”
“They already are.”
“You called them?”
“My phone is somewhere in an alley.”
“Convenient.”
“It had a bullet in it.”
She glanced at him.
“The phone?”
“My hand.”
He lifted his left palm.
A shallow furrow crossed the fleshy edge below the thumb.
Elena had cleaned it earlier without asking how it happened.
She should have asked more questions.
She had not because asking questions made things real.
A bleeding man could be treated.
A mafia boss was a decision.
She only knew who Lucian was because his wallet had fallen from his jacket while she cut his shirt away. There had been no driver's license. Just cash, a key card, and a business card embossed with MORETTI IMPORTS.
Lakehurst had many kinds of people with expensive suits.
Only one Moretti had appeared repeatedly in local news without ever being successfully convicted of anything.
Lucian had opened his eyes during the stitching and found her holding the card.
“That doesn’t mean what you think.”
“I think it says Moretti Imports.”
“It does.”
“Then we’re safe.”
May you like
He had nearly smiled before losing consciousness again.
Now Elena retrieved the phone from beneath the sink and turned it over.
