“How did I get here?” I mumble.
“I brought you,” he says. “What do you remember?”
“Marina is alive.”
I’m not sure what I was expecting to see on his face, but it certainly was not resignation. “I know.”
“Where is she now?”
“She ran before I arrived.”
I can feel my breathing start to get erratic. “So you don’t… you don’t know where she is?”
His hand lands on mine, enveloping it. Any other person and I would have flinched away from their grasp. But with Anton, everything feels so natural.
“She’s not going to touch you again,” he insists.
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re under my protection,” he says. “And to get through you, she’ll have to get through me first.”
I want to ask him why he cares. Why he would bother. But I decide on a simpler question. Facts first, feelings later—or possibly never, I haven’t quite decided.
“How did you find me?”
“Chris.”
My eyes go wide. “Chris told you where I was?”
He pulls out Chris’s phone and holds it up for me. “No. You did, actually.”
“What did you do to him?” I demand instantly.
Anton looks annoyed as he tucks Chris’s phone away. “Why would I do anything to him?”
“So he’s not hurt or, like, lying in a ditch somewhere?”
“If he is, it isn’t because of anything I did.” Anton looks at me calmly, but I can tell he’s angry. His gray eyes can’t quite hide that level of intensity.
“But I’m guessing he didn’t just hand over his phone?”
“He didn’t even know I took it. He’s probably figured it out by now, though.”
“He called me earlier. I mean, when I was at the manor. He called from an unknown number, which I thought was odd.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“He was so panicked,” I explain. “He didn’t even mention you.”
“Because he knew I was not the real threat.”
My hands are resting on my stomach and the question that has been burning in the back of my mind since I woke up shifts to the forefront. I don’t want to ask, but I also have to know.
I lift my eyes to his, realizing that the only reason I can ask at all is because he’s here with me. Giving me strength with his mere presence.
“The baby,” I say quietly. “Did I lose the baby?”
His gray eyes soften.
I hold my breath and wait.