Page 1 of Secret Heir

1

ARIA

The key turns in the lock with a metallic click that echoes down the empty Philadelphia street.

Midnight, and I’m finally closing up the gallery after another fourteen-hour shift that netted me maybe three sales.

My feet ache, my lower back screams from standing on the concrete floor, and all I want is to hurry home and collapse into bed next to Daniel and sleep until my alarm drags me back to consciousness at six.

I drop the keys twice before I get them into my purse.

My hands are shaking. I’ve been skittish all day, ever since I woke up with that feeling—the one I haven’t had in months. The prickling awareness at the base of my skull that says run.

But I can’t run.

Not anymore.

Daniel starts second grade this fall, and he finally has friends—some stability.

I can’t rip him away from that because of paranoia.

Except it’s not paranoia.

I see him the moment I straighten up and turn toward home.

He’s standing on the sidewalk twenty feet away, hands in the pockets of an expensive charcoal coat.

Streetlight catches the silver threading through his dark hair at the temples.

My breath catches.

That’s new. So are the lines around his eyes.

But everything else is the same.

The powerful build that always made me feel delicate and protected until I learned what those hands could do.

The gray eyes that used to look at me with such warmth and passion.

The gray eyes that are looking at me right now like I’m prey he’s finally run to ground.

Maksim Sokolov.

My vision tunnels.

The purse slips from my numb fingers and hits the sidewalk with a dull thud.

I can’t breathe.

Can’t think.

Eight years.

Eight years of running, of hiding, of building a life from nothing under a name that isn’t mine.

Eight years of telling myself he’d never find me, that I’d been careful enough, smart enough.

I was wrong.