Chapter 5 - Gaby
Two days passed without incident.
No black SUVs lurking on my street. No strangers with cameras outside my office.
No green-eyed men materializing in coffee shops and vanishing like smoke.
By Thursday evening, I'd almost convinced myself that Lisa was right—that my paranoid fears had been nothing more than anxiety given form, my overworked mind conjuring threats from shadows.
I'd thrown myself into work with renewed determination, arriving before Mr. Brown each morning and leaving long after he'd gone home.
The revised presentation sat on his desk, every font consistent, every color aligned with brand guidelines, every detail polished to perfection.
He hadn't acknowledged it, but he hadn't criticized it either.
In Mr. Brown's world, silence was the closest thing to approval I could expect.
The extra hours helped in another way, too. Exhaustion left no room for paranoia. By the time I stumbled home each night, I was too tired to stand at the window watching for cars that weren't there.
Thursday night, I left the office at nine—early, by my recent standards.
The subway was quiet, populated by the usual mix of late commuters and people heading out to start their evenings.
I found a seat and let the rhythmic rocking of the train lull me into a half-doze, my head nodding against the window.
My apartment welcomed me with its familiar silence.
I kicked off my heels in the entryway, padded to the kitchen in my stockinged feet, and surveyed the contents of my refrigerator.
Leftover Thai from lunch with Lisa. A bottle of white wine I'd been saving for a occasion that never seemed to arrive.
Some wilted lettuce that had been optimistic even when I'd bought it.
I heated the Thai and poured a generous glass of wine, then settled onto the couch with my laptop. More work emails—there were always more work emails—but I forced myself to close the browser after thirty minutes. Lisa's voice echoed in my head: You're burning out, Gaby.
Maybe I was. Maybe that explained everything—the paranoia, the sleeplessness, the constant feeling that I was one mistake away from losing everything I'd worked for. Normal people didn't see stalkers in every shadow. Normal people didn't feel hunted walking down a public street.
I finished my wine, washed my face, and changed into pajamas—soft cotton shorts and an oversized t-shirt that had belonged to my college boyfriend, the last man who'd seen me undressed.
That had been two years ago, before the weight I'd gained from stress eating and sedentary office work had made me too self-conscious to let anyone close.
The shirt was worn thin now, comfortable in a way that new clothes never were.
My bed felt like heaven after the long day. I lay in the darkness, listening to the familiar sounds of the building—pipes settling, a television murmuring through the wall, the distant wail of a siren somewhere in the city. Normal sounds. Safe sounds.
I fell asleep within minutes, deeper than I'd slept in weeks.
***
The sound that woke me was wrong.
I couldn't identify it at first—my sleep-fogged brain struggled to categorize the soft metallic scraping that had pulled me from unconsciousness. It wasn't the pipes. Wasn't the neighbors. It was something else, something that didn't belong in the symphony of sounds I'd learned to ignore.
Then I placed it: my front door. Someone was picking the lock.
I lay frozen, my heart suddenly pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe the paranoia had followed me into sleep, conjuring threats that didn't exist.
The lock clicked open.
I stopped breathing. In the silence of my apartment, I heard the door swing inward, heard the soft footfall of someone stepping inside. Then another. More than one person.
Move, my brain screamed. Move, move, move.
I threw off the covers as quietly as I could, my hands shaking so badly I could barely control them. My phone—where was my phone? On the nightstand, but I couldn't call for help now, couldn't risk the sound of my voice carrying to the intruders. I needed to run. Needed to get out.
The fire escape.
I was already moving toward the window when I heard the voice—low, male, speaking in a language I didn't understand. Russian, maybe. The word came through clearly, even though I couldn't translate it: Bedroom.
They were coming for me.
The window stuck. Of course it stuck—it always stuck, swollen with humidity and age, and I'd been meaning to ask the super about it for months. I shoved upward with all my strength, panic lending me force I didn't normally have. The old frame groaned, resisted, then finally gave.
Cool October air rushed over my face as I climbed through onto the fire escape. The metal grating was freezing against my bare feet, rough with rust, but I didn't care. I was already scrambling down the ladder, my breath coming in harsh gasps that seemed impossibly loud in the quiet alley.
Behind me, I heard my bedroom door crash open. Shouts in Russian. The clatter of someone climbing through the window after me.
I dropped the last few feet to the ground, my ankles screaming at the impact. The alley was dark, lit only by the dim glow from a streetlight at the far end. If I could reach the street, if I could scream loud enough for someone to hear—
"Stop."
The command came from ahead of me, not behind. A figure stepped out of the shadows near the mouth of the alley, blocking my escape. Tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a dark coat that probably cost more than a month of my rent.
I knew him before I saw his face. Knew him by the way he moved, by the authority that radiated from his posture, by the prickle of recognition that ran down my spine.
Then he stepped into the light, and those green eyes met mine.
The man from the coffee shop.
"You," I breathed.
He moved toward me, and I stumbled backward, my bare feet slipping on the grimy pavement.
Behind me, I could hear his men dropping from the fire escape, cutting off my retreat.
I was trapped in the narrow alley, surrounded by strangers in the dark, and the man I'd glimpsed once and tried to forget was walking toward me like he had all the time in the world.
"Gabrielle." He said my name like he'd been practicing it. Like he already owned it. "I need you to calm down."
"Get away from me!" My voice came out high and thin, nothing like the scream I'd intended. "Help! Someone help me!"
"No one's coming." He was close now, close enough that I could smell his cologne—the same expensive scent I'd noticed in the coffee shop, before he'd vanished and I'd told myself I was imagining things. "And I'm not going to hurt you. I'm trying to protect you."
"Protect me?" A hysterical laugh clawed its way up my throat. "You broke into my apartment! You've been following me—stalking me—" The realization crashed over me in a wave of horror. "The SUV. Outside my building. That was you."
"Yes."
He didn't deny it. Didn't even try to explain or apologize. Just that single word, delivered with perfect calm, as if admitting to weeks of surveillance was the most natural thing in the world.
"Why?" The word came out as a whisper. "What do you want from me?"
"I want to keep you alive." He took another step closer, and I flinched backward into something solid—one of his men, I realized, who'd moved to block me from behind. "There are people who would hurt you to get to me. I can't allow that."
"I don't even know you!"
"No," he agreed. "But they don't know that. And by the time they realized you were worthless as leverage, you'd already be dead."
The words hit me like ice water. Dead. He was talking about my death as casually as someone might discuss the weather.
"You're insane," I said. "You're completely insane. Let me go right now, or I'll scream until—"
He moved faster than I would have thought possible. One moment he was standing a few feet away; the next, his hand was clamped over my mouth and his other arm was banding around my waist, pulling me back against a body that felt like a wall of solid muscle.
I thrashed against him, kicking backward, clawing at his arm. He didn't even flinch. His grip was iron, immovable, and his voice was terrifyingly calm when he spoke again, his lips close to my ear.
"I'm not going to hurt you, Gabrielle. But I can't let you scream. Not until we're somewhere safe." His breath was warm against my skin, raising goosebumps along my neck. "I need you to trust me."
I bit down on his hand as hard as I could.
He grunted in pain but didn't release me. If anything, his grip tightened, pressing me more firmly against his chest. I could feel his heartbeat against my back—steady, controlled, nothing like the frantic pounding of my own.
"Kirill," he said, and one of the shadows detached itself from the darkness. "The sedative."
No. No, no, no—
I fought harder, twisting and kicking, but the man holding me was too strong. I felt a sharp sting in my arm—a needle, sliding into my vein—and then a cool rush spreading through my body.
"Shh." His voice was almost gentle now, his hand shifting from my mouth to cradle the back of my head. "Just sleep, little dove. When you wake up, you'll be safe."
I tried to scream, but my throat wasn't working. My legs gave out, and he caught me easily, lifting me against his chest like I weighed nothing. The world was going soft at the edges, the darkness of the alley bleeding into a deeper darkness that had nothing to do with night.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, and he actually sounded like he meant it. "But this is the only way."
The last thing I saw before unconsciousness claimed me was his face—those green eyes watching me with an intensity that felt like possession. Like hunger.
Like I was already his.
***
I woke to the hum of jet engines.