Before my head hit the floor, a stranger caught me.
Thirty seconds later, after seeing the bruises hidden beneath my turtleneck, the most feared man in Boston looked at me like he was ready to kill someone—and for the first time in years, I realized someone might actually save me.
I was only supposed to buy three things.
Bread.
Eggs.
Milk.
Simple enough.
The grocery store on Boylston Street smelled like coffee, detergent, and fresh bread while fluorescent lights buzzed overhead loud enough to make my headache worse. I gripped the shopping basket tighter and reminded myself not to forget the receipt.
Ethan always checked receipts.
Every dollar mattered to him.
Every minute mattered too.
By the time I reached the dairy aisle, black spots floated across my vision. My stomach twisted painfully from hunger, but I ignored it the way I ignored most things now.
Four seconds in.
Hold.
Four seconds out.
That breathing trick usually worked when panic started climbing into my chest.
Not this time.
The basket slipped from my fingers first.
Eggs shattered across the floor.
Milk splashed against my shoes.
Then suddenly the ground tilted beneath me.
I remember gasps.
Someone shouting.
And then strong arms catching me before my skull slammed into the tile.
“Easy,” a deep voice murmured near my ear.
For one disoriented second, I thought I’d fallen into danger.
Then I looked up.
Tall.
Dark wool coat.
Silver threaded through black hair.
Cold blue eyes sharp enough to cut through lies instantly.
The entire aisle had gone strangely quiet around him, like people instinctively moved out of his way without understanding why.
He lowered me carefully onto a nearby bench near the front entrance.
“You’re shaking,” he said calmly.
“I’m fine,” I whispered automatically.
A lie.
One of many.
As I tried pulling my coat tighter around myself, the collar of my black turtleneck shifted slightly.
His eyes dropped to my throat.
And froze.
I knew exactly what he saw.
Purple bruises.
Yellow fingerprints.
The fading outline of a hand wrapped around my neck.
Something inside his expression changed instantly.
The calm disappeared first.
What replaced it terrified me.
“Who did that to you?” he asked quietly.
I opened my mouth to lie again.
I had become very good at lying.
I lied to coworkers at the library when they asked why I wore turtlenecks in October.
I lied to neighbors about bruises.
I lied to myself every morning by believing Ethan would eventually stop.
Men like Ethan never begin with violence.
First comes concern.
Then control.
Then isolation.
By the time bruises appear, your entire world already belongs to them.
“You fainted because you haven’t eaten,” the stranger said flatly. “How long?”
“I’m okay.”
Another lie.
He stared at me for several seconds before walking away without another word.
Panic immediately tightened in my chest.
Then he returned carrying orange juice, a banana, and a protein bar.
“Drink,” he ordered calmly while unscrewing the juice bottle himself.
Something about his voice made refusing impossible.
My hands shook as I took the bottle.
That’s when my phone buzzed violently against the bench beside me.
ETHAN:
Where are you?
You said twenty minutes.
It’s been thirty-five.
Answer me NOW.
Fear rushed through me so fast it made me nauseous.
The stranger noticed instantly.
“Your husband?” he asked.
I nodded weakly.
His jaw tightened.
Then my phone rang.
Ethan.
Again.
The stranger picked it up before I could stop him.
“Hello?” Ethan snapped angrily through the speaker. “What the hell is taking so long?”
The man beside me leaned back slightly, his expression unreadable now.
Then he spoke in a voice so calm it became frightening.
“She won’t be coming home tonight.”
Silence.
Then Ethan laughed bitterly.
“And who exactly are you supposed to be?”
The stranger’s eyes never left mine as he answered.
“Nikolai Volkov.”
The color drained from my face instantly.
Everyone in Boston knew that name.
Businessman.
Crime boss.
Untouchable.
Dangerous enough that people lowered their voices when speaking about him.
Even Ethan feared him.
On the phone, silence stretched for three long seconds.
Then Ethan’s voice changed completely.
“Nikolai… sir… I think there’s been some misunderstanding—”
“No,” Nikolai interrupted coldly. “The misunderstanding is that you thought she belonged to you.”
My heartbeat thundered painfully in my chest.
Nikolai slowly handed me the protein bar.
Then he spoke the words that changed my life forever.
“You’re not going back.”
And for the first time in years…
I wanted to believe someone.
But before I could answer, the grocery store doors suddenly opened again.
Three men in dark coats stepped inside.
And Nikolai’s bodyguards immediately reached for their weapons.
The three men entered like they owned the air.
Not loud.
Not rushed.
That made them worse.
The grocery store doors slid shut behind them with a soft mechanical sigh, trapping the cold Boston evening outside and something much colder inside. Around me, shoppers froze between aisles. A woman holding a loaf of sourdough pressed it against her chest. A cashier stopped scanning groceries mid-beep.
IF YOU CAME FROM FACEBOOK, START FROM HERE!
Nikolai Volkov did not move.
Not at first.
He sat beside me on the bench near the entrance, one long arm resting across the back of it, his blue eyes fixed on the men in dark coats. His bodyguards shifted around us so subtly that anyone else might not have noticed.
But I noticed everything now.
Fear had trained me well.
The tallest man stepped forward.
“Nikolai,” he said.
His voice was smooth, but his eyes flicked toward me too quickly.
Nikolai noticed.
“Dimitri,” he replied. “This is a poor place for a conversation.”
Dimitri smiled. “Then perhaps you should not answer another man’s phone in public.”
My stomach twisted.
Ethan.
He had called someone.
Of course he had.
Ethan was a coward, but cowards were dangerous when cornered. They did not fight fair. They dragged others into the dark with them.
Nikolai rose slowly.
The entire store seemed to shrink around him.
He was not young, but power did not always belong to youth. Sometimes it belonged to men who had survived long enough for others to understand that age had only made them more patient.
He stepped in front of me.
Not dramatically.
Not with warmth.
Just enough that Dimitri could no longer look at me without looking through him.
“She is under my protection,” Nikolai said.
Dimitri’s smile thinned.
“That is unfortunate.”
“For whom?”
The question landed softly, but the threat inside it made the cashier behind the register whisper a prayer.
One of Nikolai’s men moved closer to the front windows. Another stayed near the exit. No weapons came out, but hands remained inside coats, and the meaning was clear enough.
Dimitri lifted both palms.
“We did not come for trouble.”
“Then you came to the wrong city.”
“I came with a message.”
Nikolai’s eyes narrowed.
“Speak.”
Dimitri looked past him again.
At me.
I hated the way his gaze touched my bruises and then traveled over my face, as if he were measuring not my pain but my usefulness.
“Ethan says the woman is confused,” Dimitri said. “Unwell. She belongs home.”
My fingers curled around the unopened protein bar in my lap.
Nikolai’s voice dropped.
“She does not belong to anyone.”
Dimitri shrugged.
“Marriage says otherwise.”
Something hot and sharp moved through me. Not courage exactly. Not yet. But the first fragile spark of anger.
Marriage.
As if a ring could become a leash.
As if vows could excuse fingerprints around a throat.
Nikolai turned his head slightly.
“Anna,” he said.
I startled.
I had not told him my name.
He saw the question in my face.
“Your library card,” he said, nodding toward my wallet half-open beside my purse. “Anna Whitaker.”
Hearing my full name from his mouth did something strange to me. Ethan never said it unless he wanted to make me feel small. Anna Marie Whitaker, look at me when I’m speaking to you. Anna Marie Whitaker, do not embarrass me.
But Nikolai said it like my name belonged to me.
“Did you ask this man to take you home?” he asked.
Every person in the front of the store waited.
My throat tightened.
Dimitri watched me.
Nikolai did not turn fully, but I could feel his attention steady on me, not pushing, not pleading. Just waiting.
My voice came out thin.
“No.”
Dimitri’s jaw hardened.
Nikolai faced him again.
“You heard her.”
“That may be a problem.”
“No,” Nikolai said. “It is an answer.”
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then one of Dimitri’s men reached inside his coat.
It happened faster than thought.
Nikolai’s bodyguard slammed him into a display of canned soup. Metal cans exploded across the floor. Someone screamed. Dimitri cursed and stepped forward, but Nikolai was already there, one hand locked around his wrist, twisting just enough to make the man’s face blanch.
“Not here,” Nikolai said quietly. “Not near civilians. Not near her.”
Dimitri breathed through his teeth.
“You are making this personal.”
Nikolai leaned closer.
“No. He did.”
The third man had gone still near the door, hands visible now.
Nikolai released Dimitri with contemptuous calm.
“Leave.”
Dimitri adjusted his sleeve, dignity cracked but not broken.
“You are starting a war over a librarian?”
The word should have sounded harmless.
Instead, it filled the space like an insult.
Nikolai looked at him for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
It was the first smile I had seen from him, and it was not comforting.
“Tell Ethan,” he said, “that if he wants his wife, he can come ask me himself.”
Dimitri’s expression changed.
He had expected anger.
He had not expected invitation.
That frightened him more.
The three men left one by one. The doors opened, swallowed them into the rain-dark street, and slid closed again.
Only then did the grocery store breathe.
A child started crying near the cereal aisle. The cashier’s hands shook above the register. The store manager emerged from behind a stack of paper towels, pale and sweating.
Nikolai turned to one of his men.
“Pay for the damages. Double. And get everyone’s groceries covered tonight.”
The manager blinked. “Sir?”
“Everyone’s,” Nikolai repeated.
His man nodded and moved away.
Then Nikolai faced me.
The coldness in his eyes changed, not into softness exactly, but into something controlled and careful.
“Can you stand?”
I tried.
My knees gave immediately.
He caught me again before I fell.
The humiliation burned worse than the weakness. I hated needing help. I hated being watched. I hated that my body had betrayed all the secrets I had spent years hiding.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
His expression hardened.
“Do not apologize for surviving.”
I looked away quickly because the words landed too close to something broken.
He did not carry me. I think he understood I needed at least the illusion of walking. Instead, he kept one steady hand at my elbow while guiding me out of the store.
Outside, Boston glittered under rain. Headlights slid over wet pavement. Sirens wailed somewhere distant, swallowed by the city. A black SUV waited at the curb, engine running, windows tinted dark.
I stopped.
Every instinct screamed not to get into a car with a dangerous man.
But every instinct also screamed not to go home.
Nikolai opened the rear door and stepped back.
“You choose,” he said.
No one had said that to me in years.
Not really.
Ethan chose what I wore, who I saw, what I ate, how much money I touched, when I slept, when I apologized. Choice had become a foreign country.
I looked down at my hands.
They were still shaking.
“My purse,” I said suddenly.
One of Nikolai’s men appeared beside us, holding it.
“And my groceries.”
The man hesitated.
Nikolai glanced at him.
A minute later, he returned with a new bag.
Bread.
Eggs.
Milk.
The absurdity of it cracked something in me. A laugh escaped, small and broken. Then the laugh turned into a sob I tried to swallow.
Nikolai said nothing.
That silence saved me from collapsing completely.
I got into the SUV.
The leather smelled expensive and unfamiliar. Warm air rushed over my damp coat. Nikolai slid in beside me, leaving space between us. His bodyguard took the front passenger seat. Another vehicle pulled out behind us.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“A doctor.”
“No hospital.”
The answer left me too fast.
Nikolai looked at me.
I forced myself to explain.
“Ethan knows people. He’ll check hospitals. Police reports. He always knows how to sound reasonable.”
Nikolai’s mouth tightened.
“Then not a hospital.”
He made one call.
“Yelena. Penthouse. Now.”
That was all.
I stared out the window as the city moved past in streaks of gold and red. I expected him to ask questions. Men always asked questions like they were owed pain in exchange for kindness.
How long has this been happening?
Why didn’t you leave?
Did you provoke him?
Are you sure it was that bad?
Nikolai asked none of those.
Instead, he opened a small compartment and handed me a bottle of water.
“Drink slowly.”
I obeyed because my body needed it, and because his voice left no space for argument.
After a while, he said, “Does he track your phone?”
My blood went cold.
“I don’t know.”
“Give it to me.”
I hesitated.
He noticed.
“I will not read your messages.”
I believed him, though I had no reason to.
I handed him the phone.
He passed it to the bodyguard in front.
“Faraday bag,” he said.
The bodyguard sealed it away.
My chest tightened. “What if he thinks I ignored him?”
“He already knows you are not answering.”
“That makes him worse.”
Nikolai’s gaze shifted to the bruises at my throat.
“Then tonight he learns worse is not his alone.”
I should have been afraid of that.
Maybe I was.
But beneath the fear, there was something shamefully close to relief.
The SUV pulled into an underground garage beneath a tower near the harbor. We rode a private elevator up so high that when the doors opened, the windows showed Boston spread beneath us like a city of small, distant stars.
The penthouse was enormous, quiet, and coldly beautiful. Dark wood floors. Gray stone fireplace. Shelves of books arranged with military precision. Nothing cluttered. Nothing soft except a white blanket folded over the back of a sofa.
A woman in her sixties waited near the living room with a medical bag.
Silver hair in a braid.
Sharp eyes.
No nonsense.
“You fainted?” she asked me.
I nodded.
“Sit.”
I sat.
Nikolai remained by the windows while Yelena examined me. She checked my pulse, blood pressure, pupils. When she carefully lowered the collar of my turtleneck, her face went still.
She looked angry.
Not shocked.
That made me wonder how many women she had seen like me.
“Any trouble swallowing?”
“Sometimes.”
“Dizziness?”
“Yes.”
“Ribs?”
I did not answer quickly enough.
She exhaled through her nose.
“Coat off.”
I looked at Nikolai.
He had already turned his back.
That small courtesy almost broke me more than everything else.
Yelena helped me remove my coat. Then, with gentle hands, she checked the bruises along my arms, shoulder, and ribs. Her touch was professional, but her mouth tightened with every mark.
“How long since you ate a full meal?” she asked.
I stared at the floor.
“Anna.”
My name again.
This time from Yelena.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
She muttered something in Russian that sounded like a curse.
Nikolai said something back in the same language, low and dangerous.
Yelena snapped at him.
He went silent.
For some reason, that made me trust her immediately.
“You need food, rest, and imaging for the ribs if pain worsens,” Yelena said. “The neck bruising is serious. He could have killed you.”
I looked down.
“He said he didn’t mean to.”
Yelena’s eyes softened only slightly.
“They always say that when the body survives.”
Nikolai turned then.
His face revealed nothing, but one hand was curled tightly at his side.
Yelena packed her bag.
“I will stay in the guest room tonight,” she told him.
“No,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to.”
She looked at me as if I had said something foolish.
“I know.”
Then she left the room.
A few minutes later, food appeared. Soup. Bread. Tea with honey. Sliced apples. Nothing heavy. Nothing fancy.
I sat at a long dining table that looked like it had hosted diplomats or criminals, maybe both, and tried to eat without crying.
Nikolai sat across from me but did not touch his food.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked finally.
His eyes lifted.
“Because I saw bruises on your throat.”
“That’s not enough reason for someone like you.”
A faint shadow crossed his face.
“Someone like me?”
“Everyone knows who you are.”
“No,” he said. “Everyone knows stories.”
“Are they wrong?”
He considered that.
“Not all of them.”
The honesty unsettled me more than denial would have.
I set my spoon down.
“Then I should be afraid of you.”
“Yes.”
My breath caught.
He leaned back slightly.
“But not for the same reason he is afraid.”
The room fell quiet.
Below us, the harbor lights shimmered against black water.
“I can’t stay here,” I said.
“You can.”
“Ethan will go to the police.”
“Let him.”
“He’ll say I’m unstable. He’ll say I’m having an episode. He has pictures of the apartment after he broke things. He’ll say I did it.”
“Has he done that before?”
I looked away.
Nikolai understood.
“He will not control the story this time.”
“You don’t know him.”
“No,” Nikolai said. “But I know men who mistake fear for loyalty.”
My hands folded in my lap.
“Why did those men come so quickly?”
Nikolai did not answer at once.
That was answer enough.
“You know Ethan,” I whispered.
His eyes sharpened.
“I know of him.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your husband owes money to dangerous people.”
A cold, hollow feeling opened inside me.
“How much?”
“Enough that sending men into a grocery store was meant as pressure, not collection.”
I gripped the edge of the table.
“What did he use the money for?”
Nikolai’s gaze stayed on mine.
“Gambling. Bad investments. Worse partnerships.”
The room seemed to move away from me.
Ethan had made me count coins for groceries. He had locked the pantry. He had told me I was selfish for buying shampoo that cost six dollars instead of four.
And he had debts large enough to summon men in dark coats.
“There is more,” Nikolai said.
I wished he would stop.
I needed him to continue.
“He recently offered collateral.”
My mouth went dry.
“What kind?”
Nikolai’s silence told me before his words did.
“You.”
The spoon slipped from my hand and struck the bowl with a small, bright sound.
“No,” I said.
Nikolai’s face remained controlled, but the air around him changed.
“He could not sell you in any legal sense. But men like that do not require legality. They require access.”
I stood too fast.
The room tilted.
He was beside me immediately, steadying me without trapping me.
“Breathe.”
“I need to leave.”
“You are safe here.”
“No one is safe near you.”
His hand dropped away.
For the first time, I saw something almost like hurt flicker across his expression. It vanished instantly.
“You are correct,” he said.
That made it worse.
He did not lie. Ethan always lied.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Do not apologize for being afraid.”
I sank back into the chair.
My body felt borrowed. Bruised. Exhausted. Empty in places I did not know how to fill.
Nikolai returned to his seat.
“I will arrange a secure place for you,” he said. “Not connected to me. New phone. Attorney. Medical records. Whatever you need to leave him properly.”
I stared at him.
“Why not just send me there now?”
His gaze moved toward the window.
“Because tonight, he will come.”
My heart stopped.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I told him to.”
For a moment, I could only stare.
“You invited him here?”
“No. I gave him a door. Men like Ethan cannot resist walking through one if they believe pride waits on the other side.”
Anger flashed through me.
“You used me as bait.”
Nikolai’s eyes returned to mine.
“No. I used myself.”
“That sounds like something men say when they want control.”
He accepted the strike without flinching.
“You are right to question me.”
That deflated my anger in a way I hated.
I wanted him to be simple.
Monster or savior.
Danger or refuge.
But Nikolai Volkov sat across from me with blood on his reputation and restraint in his hands, and I did not know where to put him in my mind.
A phone rang somewhere in the room.
One of his men entered and spoke quietly.
“He’s downstairs.”
My body turned to ice.
Nikolai stood.
“Put him in the west room.”
“No,” I said.
He looked at me.
“I want to see him.”
“No.”
The word came out like an order.
I stood anyway.
“For three years he made me afraid of footsteps, keys, doors, silence. If he is here, I want to see him afraid.”
Nikolai studied me for a long moment.
Then he nodded once.
“From behind the glass.”
The west room was not what I expected.
It was a formal sitting room divided by a dark reflective panel. From our side, I could see into the room beyond. From Ethan’s side, there was only a mirror.
Ethan stood in the center, soaked from rain, hair disheveled, face pale with rage he was trying to dress as concern.
He looked smaller than I remembered.
That frightened me too.
How could someone so small have taken up my entire life?
“Nikolai,” Ethan said when the door opened.
Nikolai entered alone.
I watched from behind the glass, arms wrapped around myself.
Ethan’s eyes darted past him.
“Where is my wife?”
“Safe.”
“She’s confused.”
“No.”
“She has anxiety. She faints. She exaggerates. I’m her husband.”
Nikolai said nothing.
Ethan licked his lips.
“Look, I don’t know what she told you, but Anna is delicate. She needs structure. Sometimes she hurts herself and blames me.”
My nails dug into my palms.
There it was.
The voice he used for doctors. Neighbors. My old friends. Smooth with sadness. Heavy with sacrifice.
Nikolai walked to a small table and picked up a folder.
He opened it.
“Emergency clinic visit. January third. Bruised ribs.”
Ethan stiffened.
“Staircase fall. March seventeenth. Sprained wrist.”
Ethan’s mouth tightened.
“Dental repair. June ninth. Cracked molar.”
“That was an accident.”
“Neighbor complaint. August twenty-second. Woman screaming.”
“She has nightmares.”
“Library coworker statement. September twelfth. Visible bruising.”
Ethan’s mask slipped.
Just for a second.
“You’ve been busy.”
“Yes,” Nikolai said.
“You think this makes you noble? Everyone knows what you are.”
Nikolai closed the folder.
“I am not noble.”
“Then what do you want?”
“For you to understand your position.”
Ethan laughed once.
“My position? She’s my wife. You can’t keep her.”
“No,” Nikolai said. “I cannot keep her.”
The words struck me strangely.
“Neither can you,” he continued.
Ethan’s face darkened.
“I want to speak to Anna.”
“No.”
“She’ll come if I call her.”
Behind the glass, I stopped breathing.
Ethan turned toward the mirror as if he could sense me.
“Anna,” he called gently.
That voice.
The soft one.
The one from the beginning.
The one that bought flowers and remembered my coffee order and said nobody understood him like I did.
“Baby, I know you’re scared,” he said. “This man is dangerous. Come home and we’ll fix this.”
My knees weakened.
Not because I believed him.
Because some wounded, trained part of me still responded to the sound of permission.
Nikolai looked at the mirror.
Not at Ethan.
At me.
He did not speak.
He let the silence belong to my choice.
Ethan stepped closer to the glass.
“Anna, I forgive you.”
Something inside me went still.
Not broke.
Not healed.
Stilled.
He forgave me.
For fainting.
For being caught.
For letting someone see what he had done.
The fear inside my chest shifted, sharpened, became something clean.
I reached toward the small microphone Nikolai’s man had shown me.
Pressed the button.
My voice filled the room.
“I don’t need your forgiveness.”
Ethan froze.
His eyes widened.
Nikolai did not turn, but I saw his shoulders settle.
Ethan’s face twisted.
“There you are.”
I kept my finger on the button.
“I’m not coming home.”
The room went silent.
Then Ethan smiled.
It was ugly.
Honest.
“There is no home without me, Anna. Your bank account? Mine. Your lease? Mine. Your friends? Gone. Your parents? Dead. Your job? I can ruin that with one phone call.”
My throat tightened, but I did not let go of the microphone.
“You already ruined everything you could reach.”
His eyes burned.
“And you think he’ll save you? Volkov? Ask him about his wife.”
The air changed.
Nikolai went very still.
Ethan saw it and smiled wider.
“Oh. He didn’t tell you? Of course not.”
“Nikolai,” I whispered, though the microphone was still on.
Ethan leaned toward the mirror.
“Men like him don’t save women, Anna. They collect ghosts.”
Nikolai moved so fast I barely saw it.
One moment he stood several feet away. The next, his hand was around Ethan’s collar, driving him back against the wall with enough force to knock a framed painting crooked.
But he did not hit him.
He held him there.
Breathing controlled.
Eyes like winter.
“You will sign the divorce papers,” Nikolai said.
Ethan choked out a laugh.
“Or what?”
Nikolai leaned in.
“Or every man you owe money to learns you offered them something you never owned.”
Ethan’s face changed.
Real fear.
Not the shallow kind from the phone.
Real, bone-deep fear.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I already did.”
Ethan swallowed.
Nikolai released him.
A man entered with papers and a pen.
Ethan stared at them, then toward the mirror.
For once, he had no speech.
No apology.
No performance.
Just the small, bitter look of a man losing a possession he had mistaken for power.
He signed.
Not because he respected me.
Not because he was sorry.
Because he was afraid of someone stronger.
It should not have felt like victory.
But it did.
When Ethan was dragged from the room, he looked back once.
Not at Nikolai.
At the mirror.
“At least ask him why he was really in that grocery store,” he shouted. “Ask him why he knew your name before he looked at your wallet.”
The door closed.
The silence afterward was enormous.
I released the microphone.
My hand shook.
Nikolai remained in the room beyond the glass, staring at the door where Ethan had disappeared.
Then slowly, he turned toward the mirror.
Toward me.
I stepped back.
The door opened a moment later, and he entered our side.
Neither of us spoke.
Finally, I asked, “Did you know my name before tonight?”
His face revealed nothing.
But the pause told me everything.
“Yes.”
The room tilted beneath me.
“Why?”
He looked older suddenly. Not weak. Never weak. But burdened by something that had waited a long time to surface.
“Because I knew your mother.”
My breath caught.
“My mother has been dead for fifteen years.”
“I know.”
The way he said it made my skin go cold.
I backed away from him.
“What does my mother have to do with this?”
Nikolai reached into his coat and removed a small envelope.
Old.
Cream-colored.
Softened at the edges.
My name was written across the front in handwriting I recognized so violently that the world blurred.
Anna Marie.
My mother’s handwriting.
I could not move.
“She gave this to me,” Nikolai said, “three days before she died.”
My voice barely existed.
“Why would my mother give you a letter?”
His blue eyes held mine.
“Because she knew one day you would need protection.”
The envelope trembled in his hand.
“And because Ethan did not choose you by accident.”
