49. Zyran
ZYRAN
Ipulled my truck up outside her building and cut the engine, sitting there for a second with my hands still on the wheel, running through the list in my head.
Grab what’s left, her belongings, and make sure they’re safe before she has to worry about returning to her apartment. Esperr doesn't need to worry about it. And she won’t be going back. I’ll drive her every goddamn morning if I can’t convince her to quit.
I exhale and throw open my door, climbing out when my phone rings. Pulling it out of my pocket, I glance down, expecting Sybil or Raiden to chew my ass out about missing training again after I promised I’d be there. But it’s Rhys.
Rhys doesn’t call; in the entire time we’ve shared a house, I can count on one hand the number of times he’s actually called rather than sent a text.
I stop next to my truck, sliding the answer across. “Yeah?”
“Someone is after her.” There’s no greeting, just Rhys being Rhys. “I don’t have the full picture yet, but I have enough to start looking into finding her true identity.”
“How do you know any of this?” I ask carefully.
I’ve only told Raiden that someone was probably looking into her and that I didn’t have all the facts. It hasn’t been the right time, and I planned on telling everyone today while she was at work.
“We talked.”
I frown, glancing around for the hidden camera. “You talked?”
“Yes, the other morning when she came downstairs. She found out what I do and asked if I could look for him.”
I stand there outside her building and feel something move through my chest that I can’t immediately name.
“She asked you,” I whisper.
“Yes,” He deadpans.
“Why—when—did she come to you?”
“The other morning,” Rhys sighs, like this is the most boring conversation he’s had.
I push through the building's door and start up the stairs, phone pressed against my ear. “What do you know so far?” I ask, taking the stairs two at a time.
“Really just his name, Michael. She said her father handled most of the contracts, so I’m talking with Walker to see if he knows anyone named Michael.
I haven’t heard back from him. But also just the basics; her parents were killed by him because he was obsessed with her.
” I hear his keyboard running in the back, that constant low click that means Rhys is searching at the same time he’s talking.
“Can you find him?”
“Give me time, and tell me what you know.”
I sigh, shoving her floor's main door open before heading down the hall. “Honestly, dude, I don’t even know much.” As much as I don’t want to spill her entire life, I feel less guilty thinking about Rhys actually finding this fucker so I can put him down.
“Her parents were hired cleaners. I don’t know when they got into the business, but when Esperr was six, her parents took her to her first scene.
She moved around a lot, but when she was sixteen, she had been at this place for the last three years, and she felt like she could trust someone, and well.
The fucker was weak, and it forced them to move.
When she was twenty, they took the last job, cleaning up after Michael.
And he became obsessed with her. Her father witnessed this and was secretly trying to get her a new ID, trying to hide her.
” I barely catch my breath before I keep on.
“Her father was working with someone named Oliver. She still keeps in touch with him and… fuck.” I hissed, stopping in front of her door.
“Oliver’s been ignoring her, hanging up…
she said to give her time to get him to come clean about what's going on, said it had nothing to do with her but something personal. I told her we’d figure it out when she was ready. ”
Rhys is quiet the entire time I speak, just the keyboard running, and in a way, I find that noise comforting.
“Oliver, he got a last name?”
I cringe. “Don’t know it.”
“I’ll find it.” There is a pause, where all I hear is the rapid beating of my heart in my ears. “And for Michael—you said the last job was cleaning up after him. Do you have a location, a time frame?”
“Three years ago, that’s all I got,” I tell him, feeling completely useless.
“It’s enough; give me a few hours.”
He hangs up before I can say anything. Pocketing my phone, I push her door open and step inside before kicking it shut.
Just as it latches, I notice a shadow near the window.
My hand goes to my side immediately, grabbing the knife I keep there, already moving when the shadow steps forward into the light and I get my first proper look at him.
Dirty blond hair, wavy and pushed in front of his face, like he’s trying to hide it. A lip piercing sits in the center of his bottom lip, and earrings are in both ears. He’s young—mid-twenties, if I had to guess.
We look at each other across the wrecked apartment.
“My last name is Reeves,” he says suddenly. “You must be Zyran.” The corner of his mouth moves slightly. “I’m Oliver.”
I look at him for a second, and while I don’t know what I was expecting, for some reason it wasn’t this. Maybe someone older, more worn down by years of keeping someone hidden—but not this.
I sober up quickly, taking a step further into the room. “She’s been worried about you.”
Oliver sighs and leans against the wall, and that’s when the light hits him properly and I go still.
The bruising around his throat is deep, purple, and blue in the shape of fingers, and both of his eyes have a yellowish-green mark. There’s a cut along his jaw that is slightly raised with something that reminds me of being cut.
Someone beat him, and the begging question is if it was Michael.
“Who?”
Oliver holds my gaze, blinking. “That doesn’t concern Michael; therefore, it doesn’t concern you.”
I look at him for a moment, and he just watches me with the same intense look.
“Fine,” I finally muttered. “Then tell me why you’re here.”
He exhales slowly and walks over to the lamp that’s still lying on the ground. Bending down, he picks it up and sets it back in the corner.
“She texted me saying that Michael found her.”
I stand there, dragging a hand through my hair, and look around the apartment. Bending down, I begin to assist Oliver in picking up Esperr’s belongings while tossing the trash and what Michael had destroyed into the garbage bag.
“Where is she?” Oliver asks after a few.
“Work. Went in this morning,” I sigh.
He picks up one of the cushions and sets it back onto the couch.
“I told her she didn’t have to go.” I’m not sure why I felt the need to tell him, but this is Oliver, her best friend, and for some reason I feel like I have to win him over. Meaning he has to know that even against my will, she’s going to do what she wants.
Oliver makes a sound in the back of his throat, sort of like a laugh, but not quite. “Yeah, that was never going to work.”
“Huh?” I frown, tying off one bag of trash before opening another.
“She’s stubborn,” he says. “Once she decides something, that’s basically it. You can argue all you want,” he picks up another cushion. “She’ll listen and then do exactly the opposite, almost in spite.”
I let out a simple “ha,” before muttering, "Yeah, I’m learning that.”
I feel his gaze on me, and I know he’s assessing me, searching for any clues that I can’t be trustworthy. It’s what he’s been doing since I walked in.
“She tell you about her parents?” He hesitates to ask.
“Uh yeah, some things here and there.”
He nods slowly and moves to the bookshelf to start stacking the few books she has.
“Her father was a good man,” he mutters.
“One of the best I’ve known in this business.
He loved her more than anything; that’s why he came to me.
He saw what Michael was becoming and he wanted her to disappear before it got worse.
” He pauses. “I was just there, just days away from having everything she would need to start over.”
“A few days…” I repeat, my finger hovering over glass.
“Two days.” He exhales through his nose. “And then it all went wrong.”
I drop my head, having nothing to say.
My gaze falls to the broken mug—three little pieces on the kitchen floor, the handle snapped clean off—and I crouch down, picking them up. For a moment I hesitate on just throwing them away, but I find myself setting them on the counter instead.
That was her favorite mug.
I know it was her favorite because she reached for it every morning; it was before she was even fully awake, but it was the first cup she grabbed. And now it’s in three pieces because of Michael.
Almost like nothing in her life has ever been allowed to matter.
And that thought alone makes me angry. I hate that she grew up cleaning blood at the ripe age of six, that she had to move in the middle of the night because she trusted one single person, and I hate that she had to watch her parents die.
Even worse, she has spent the last three years running in cities never feeling like she belonged.
And through all of it, she tried to finally build something here; it was small, quiet, and entirely her own—this apartment, her two jobs, she let herself have something because even if she didn’t admit it, she believed she was safe.
She deserved better than all of it.
She deserved a childhood that didn’t involve crime scenes and deserved parents who got to see her grow old. She deserved to trust someone with her secrets that didn’t turn on her.
I’m going to find Michael, and when I do, I’m going to make sure he understands exactly what he took.
Time moves slowly as I move through the kitchen methodically, picking things up off the floor, checking what’s salvageable and what isn’t. The majority of the dishes were plastic and fine, but he broke what he could.
I find her coffee maker on its side behind the two-seater table; pulling it out, I set it back on the counter and plug it in. Finding that it works, I count that as a small victory. Maybe I’ll bring it back to the house for her.
From the living room I can hear Oliver moving things around.