Page 93 of Cruel Juliet

After what happened with Dimitri, I can’t be too careful.

“It’ll be easier once we’re back,” I say. “You’ll have the nursery. The guards. Everything you need.”

Sima doesn’t answer right away. She’s quiet, but I see her hands still over the baby bag. When she finally looks up, her eyes are uncertain.

“Petyr,” she says softly, “I don’t know if I want to go back there.”

I frown. “What are you talking about?”

“The house,” she says. “I don’t feel safe there.”

“After everything that’s happened, that’s the safest place you can be. You know that.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not that. It’s—” She hesitates, then exhales. “Promise you won’t think I’m crazy?”

“Never.”

“You’ll never think I’m crazy, or you’ll never promise?”

“Sima.” I grab both her hands. “I promise I won’t think you’re crazy.”

She takes a slow breath. “The night I fell… I heard a baby crying.”

“A baby?” I frown. “But Lilia?—”

“Wasn’t born yet. I know. Remember how I asked you not to think I’m crazy?”

I nod. “Go on.”

“At first, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. You know? Old house, creepy noises—your place is basically every horror movie director’s wet dream.”

“I did not know that, but continue.”

She looks me in the eye. “I followed the sound, but when I got to the stairs… someone pushed me.”

For a second, I’m convinced I’ve heard her wrong. “What?”

“I fell down the stairs. I managed to grab the railing, but my arm is still killing me from that.” She massages her shoulder. I realize I’ve seen her rolling it a lot in the past few days, but with all her aches from the birth, I didn’t think about it too deeply.

Now, I realize I should have.

“What happened next?”

“I looked back. No one was there.” Her voice trembles. “And the crying stopped.”

I stare at her and try to process what she’s saying. “You think someone was in the house?”

“I don’t know,” she mumbles. “Maybe I imagined it. Maybe it was the pain clouding me. But it felt real, Petyr. The crying, the shove—it feltreal.”

I move closer and rest my hand on her good shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it’s insane!” she blurts. “Crying babies in a big old mansion at night? Come on. It makes zero sense.”

“Maybe not, but you could’ve been hurt. Or worse—” I stop myself before finishing. The thought is too much.

“I know.” She looks down at Lilia, then back at me. “That’s why I don’t want to go back there. Not yet.”

I take a slow breath. Logic tells me it doesn’t make sense. My systems didn’t detect an intruder, and my men didn’t say anything, either. There were no signs of forced entry. If there had been, I’d have heard about it.