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“What concerns me absolutely doesn’t concern you,” I tell him, but when I try to wrench my arm away, he holds on tight.

“Doesn’t it?”

Again, I don’t answer, and the hold he has on my arm doesn’t let up.

“I’d like some time with you,” he says. “Just for a conversation.”

I’m about to try to break his grip again when he reaches over and sweeps his jacket aside. It’s only a slight movement, but enough to flash the gun he’s got at his waist.

“Let’s go get a drink, Nora.”

I stop fighting. I stop doing anything, completely frozen where I stand. We’re still on a public street, and although it’s quiet tonight, there are a few other people out and about. If I called for help, what would he do? Would he shoot me? Would anyone else get hurt?

“How does that sound?”

Not knowing what to do, not knowing what I can do without risking my own life or someone else’s, I numbly nod my head.

“Good,” he says, leaning down to speak softly near my ear. “I’ve been waiting for this day for three years. I suppose I should thank the clerk at the Bureau who tipped me off and let me know just where I could find you.”

My heart drops, but I still can’t speak as he uses his hand on my arm to steer me down the street. I don’t know where we’re going, but we’re headed in the opposite direction of the well-trafficked downtown.

“You looked so pretty that night at the bookstore,” Daniel goes on, and bile raises up in the back of my throat at the confirmation I was right. I wasn’t just seeing things that night. “Not that you should be working in a place like that when you have other options.”

Other options.Being with him. Being accessible and accountable to him every single second of every damn day. Only having as much money and freedom as he gives me. Depending on him entirely.

We turn down another street, one that’s even darker and emptier than the last, and a bolt of fear courses through me.

Fuck. I made the wrong decision, didn’t I? This is exactly what to do if you want to get murdered. Don’t scream. Don’t fight. Let him get you alone.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I’m about to take my chances and just start screaming when Daniel stops outside a small, unassuming looking bar.

“We should have some privacy here,” he says, reaching for the door.

Before he can open it, my phone buzzes from inside my coat pocket with an incoming call. Daniel’s eyes zero in on the spot, and he holds his hand out wordlessly. Not sure what he’ll do if I refuse, I fish it out and hand it over.

A brief glimpse as I give it to him shows Elias’s name, plus the two little heart emojis I added next to it in my contacts list just a week ago. When Daniel looks down at the screen, a flash of rage breaks over his features before he’s able to hide it.

Without a word, Daniel drops the phone to the sidewalk and steps on it, shattering the screen. The buzzing stops, Elias’s name goes dark, and Daniel smiles back down at me, firmly behind that chilling mask of his once more.

“Let’s go,” he says, taking me by the elbow and leading me inside.

32

Elias

Nora isn’t at the bookstore.

Her scent is, and her coworkers let me know she left here almost a half-hour ago, apparently on her way home.

Stepping outside, the rain has picked up now, and any traces of her scent that might have followed her to her bus stop have long since been washed away. And that’s probably precisely where she went. Home. She’s probably home and safe, and all of this is an overreaction.

Still, I’m rooted to the sidewalk just like I was the day we bumped into each other. Why I can’t accept the likely truth, I don’t know, but everything in me is screaming that there’s something I’m not seeing.

Something is wrong.

I feel it with every breath I take. The ache in my chest is too pointed to ignore, and I step back under the bookstore’s awning and pull my phone from my pocket to try calling her again.