“Zoya.” Willow holds up her hands and advances slowly. “She’s here to help. I wouldn’t have called her if I didn’t think she could help.”
Zoya shakes her head. “She can’t help me. She wants tokillme. She wants to kill my baby!”
“That’s not true,” I blurt.
Willow widens her eyes at me, shaking her head subtly.Don’t talkis what she’s saying.Let me handle itis what that means.
And maybe it’s for the best.
“The NYPD is looking for you,” Willow explains gently. “I’m sure you got a notification on your phone.”
Zoya pales more if that were even possible. “Yeah…”
“If we don’t leave this place right now, then it’s only a matter of time before they come looking for you here.” Willow holds up the sunglasses and hat. “We have to go. Now.”
Zoya whimpers. “I…I…”
Willow motions for Zoya to lower the weapon. “Just drop the knife. Okay? Nobody is going to hurt you. I promise.”
The knife clangs when it hits the ground. The three of us jump simultaneously. All right, so we’reallon edge. And two of us are pregnant. These aren’t exactly joyful conditions.
Zoya shivers. “Please don’t let her hurt me.”
I step toward her, trying to mimic Willow’s calm demeanor. “You’re going to be safe. I promise.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t blame you.”
She shakes her head, recoiling when I step toward her. The more she backs up, the more I realize she’s cornered. By me.
She’s afraid of me. Just like Willow.
My nightmare swims to the surface.Kill, my mind recalls.Kill, kill, kill...
I see her slump down to the ground and bite back a sob from my chest, hoping that I don’t start crying right here. She doesn’t even know about my nightmare. Willow doesn’t either. It’s just me and my stupid brain firing off while I wait for her to finally make her decision.
After a few minutes, the images fade and I see her weighing her options quietly. She stares blankly at the ground between us, as if she’s tracing the lines between the tiles. I step back to give her more space. That seems to help, and she starts to take deeper, calmer breaths.
A few minutes of silence pass. A helicopter whirls overhead. The breeze picks up and whips against the window. Wind chimes ring somewhere in the distance.
Finally, Zoya meets my gaze.
“Okay, I’ll come.”
Chapter Seven
Pavel
My phone hasn’t stopped chiming for an hour. The incessant noise irks me as I ride quietly in the elevator and resist the urge to smash the thing to pieces. When I reach the floor for the penthouse suite, I whip it out of my pocket, scrolling through the notifications I received in just a matter of minutes.
Messages from various brigadiers. Emails. Updates from the front desk. Spam texts. A statewide-issued notification about a missing person.
The name stops me dead in my tracks.
Zoya Malinskaya.
It’s weird seeing her face on my phone. How many times did I avoid her while she roamed this building? Probably a million. The pressure that came with being around her was too much at one point, so I disregarded her socially in every way.