Page 51
His hands tightened on the wheel.
“What did Sinclair tell you?”
No answer came. The man who had given me Salvatore’s laughter now withheld the truth with the same merciless restraint my family had used all my life.
The city blurred past in streaks of light. Boston’s buildings began to thin as Rurik drove west, carrying me further from Massachusetts General, further from Mom, and further from the father I had only just learned how to name. The sedan stayed behind us—patient, relentless, never close enough for me to see the men inside and never far enough for me to believe we had escaped.
I searched every passing sign for something I recognized, as if naming the exits could keep me from vanishing. Each mile carried us deeper into a night Rurik controlled. I had escaped Nolan’s house and survived Salvatore’s death, only to find myself locked inside another man’s vehicle while danger followed close enough to shoot through the glass.
“Turn around.”
Rurik changed lanes without looking at me.
“Please.” Anger cracked beneath the word, leaving only terror behind. “If Cian dies while I’m in this car, I’ll never forgive you.”
His jaw tightened. “Then hate me alive.”
We merged onto the Mass Turnpike, and Boston began to disappear behind us. I twisted in my seat until the belt locked across my chest and watched the skyline shrink through fractured glass. Somewhere inside those lights, my mother sat beside Cian while strangers decided whether he would live. Somewhere behind us, armed men followed. Beside me, Rurik drove as though every mile were an order he had accepted before I understood I had been written into it.
As the city fell away, my fear changed shape. It was no longer only fear for Cian. It became fear of the locked doors, the dark road ahead, and the man who knew why we were running but refused to give me the truth.
“Rurik, what the hell is going on?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at me. His silence became another locked door I couldn’t force open.
Boston vanished behind us, and with every mile Rurik put between me and my father, the certainty hardened: I had escaped one trap only to be carried into another.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The sedan followed us beyond Boston.
Its headlights hovered behind the white fracture in the rear window, disappearing whenever another vehicle moved between us and returning the moment traffic shifted. Rurik watched the mirror with the same terrible calm he’d shown when the bullet struck.
The summer heat clung beneath my clothes, but my hands wouldn’t stop trembling. Somewhere behind us, Cian lay beneath hospital lights while the only man willing to tell me anything carried me farther away.
The last time Cian was hurt, I had run to him and straight into a trap that tore me away from Salvatore and Henry. I hadn’t understood why the fear of losing him felt like losing part of myself, only that I couldn’t stay away. Now someone had used the same love against me again, but this time I knew its name. Cian was my father, and every mile Rurik put between us felt like the beginning of another loss I would never find my way back from.
“Answer me,” I demanded.
“I will,” Rurik said without looking at me.
“When?”
“When they are no longer behind us.”
“My father could be dying while you decide I haven’t earned the truth.”
His hands tightened around the wheel. “Cian spent the breath he had warning people to keep you away from that hospital. I’m not wasting it because you’re angry with me.”
“I’m more than angry.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” My throat already burned from screaming at him. “You don’t know what it cost me to walk away from Henry. You don’t know what I lost because I believed distance would protect Salvatore. I will not do this again. Turn around.”
Leaving had always begun with someone promising it was necessary. I never went back to Henry because love demanded I keep him safe, then watched the empty years prove that sacrifice and safety were not the same thing. Salvatore had died before I could find my way back to him, leaving me to survive the distance I had once mistaken for protection. Now Rurik expected me to sit still while another man I loved disappeared behind me.
The sedan moved directly behind us, its headlights filling the fractured glass. Rurik accelerated, and the seat caught my body as the Mass Turnpike blurred beneath the darkening sky.
