Page 48
For one fractured instant, relief moved through me.
“Cian’s been hurt.” I hurried toward him. “I need to get to Massachusetts General.”
“I know.”
Relief died as Rurik stepped into my path. He wore black, as he had in the restaurant, but nothing about him was softened by streetlights now. The man who had sat across from me with his hands folded around a cup of coffee was gone. In his place stood someone built from stillness, command, and decisions already made.
“You’re not going to the hospital.”
I stopped so abruptly my heel slipped against the pavement. “What?”
“You can’t go there.”
“Move.”
“No.”
The word was quiet and absolute. Nolan had used that same tone whenever he wanted obedience to feel inevitable, and my body recognized it before my mind could separate one man from another.
“My father is hurt.” I tried to step around him, but Rurik moved with me, keeping his body between me and the street. “My mother needs me.”
“You cannot go to the hospital.”
Cold moved beneath my skin. I tightened my hand around my phone. “Why?”
“Because Sinclair contacted me. The hospital is a trap.”
The city seemed to tilt around us. “What are you talking about?”
“Cian warned the man who found him,” Rurik said. “He said your name. Then he said hospital and trap.” His gaze swept past my shoulder before returning to mine. “Sinclair told me to keep you away.”
Sinclair told him. The restaurant returned with vicious clarity: Rurik in the doorway, the practiced surprise on his face, the smooth excuse about business, the coffee he barely drank. He’d found me in a city where powerful men rarely appeared by chance, and I had mistaken choreography for coincidence.
“You weren’t in that restaurant by accident.”
Rurik didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
“Sinclair sent you to Boston.”
“Yes.”
“You followed me to that restaurant.”
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt more than another lie would have. He offered no excuse, no softer version of what he had done. He stood in front of me and let the truth cut as deeply as it needed to.
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
My throat tightened until breathing hurt. “Was any of it real?”
“Everything I told you about Salvatore was true.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Something shifted in his expression, but he didn’t answer. The silence ruined what little mercy that dinner had left. I had believed I chose to invite him into Salvatore’s memories. Now even that choice felt staged, a path cleared by another man before I understood I had stepped onto it.
