Chapter 13
Roxy
The morning air in Bar Harbor is warm enough that I can tell I’ll be sweating soon. I pull my coat off as I step out of the Ursa Arcane SUV and toss it inside. The door shuts with a heavy thud behind me. It feels too loud on this quiet stretch of Main Street.
I should feel nothing but excitement. I’m minutes away from signing the closing papers on the first real home I’ve ever owned. A place for me and Andi. A place where I can tuck her into bed at night instead of dropping her off with my mother and pretending it doesn’t break something inside me.
But all morning, something has felt off.
Maybe it’s the silence in the car. My driver—Vadim—has the kind of presence that hangs in the air even when he doesn’t speak.
If I had any doubt that Makari was more than just a businessman before, this vanquishes it; men like Vadim are made for more than just driving people around.
He watches everything. Absorbs everything.
And this morning he has been watching me.
“You sure you don’t want me to wait inside?” he asks now, the first thing he’s said in fifteen minutes.
“It’s fine,” I say lightly. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
His eyes flick toward the attorney’s building, scanning the street, then the rooftops. Part of me wants to roll my eyes, but I know better. Ursa Arcane employees are trained this way. Trained to anticipate danger before it shows itself. Trained by men like Makari Medvedev.
A ripple of heat moves through me at the thought of him—unwelcome, embarrassing, too sharp.
Was it really only yesterday that Andi stumbled upon her father? I put a hand to my chest at the memory of the fear that spiked through me when I heard Dima’s shout and realized who she was with. When Makari told me with a straight face that she’d asked about his tooth.
He handled it—handled her—with more patience than I knew he was capable of. I’ve been trying and failing not to picture the way he looked at me after she left the room—some mixture of confusion and heat and something dangerously close to tenderness.
I inhale deeply. Focus.
Today isn’t about Makari. It can’t be. This is about solid ground. Stability. A front door that locks. A childhood for my daughter that doesn’t involve scraping to meet the rent and moving to another county, another classroom. She could have friends here. A home.
I take one step toward the attorney’s door—
“Roxy?”
The voice freezes me in place.
I turn slowly.
Eric Harlan stands on the sidewalk, half a cigarette hanging from his fingers, a deputy’s badge clipped to his belt.
My brain takes a beat too long to reconcile the two images.
What the hell is he doing here? The boy I dated my first year of college wore charm like armor—blue-eyed confidence, easy laugh, warmth curling at the edges of everything he touched.
This man isn’t that.
His uniform hangs too loose on him, his face thinner than it should be, like someone stripped him down to bone and left only the shadows. His eyes—once bright—look hollow. Sleep-deprived. Dangerous in a way I can’t explain.
But he smiles; a lopsided grin that shows too many teeth and doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Long time,” he says.
I grip the strap of my purse. “Yeah. It’s been a while.”
There are polite things I could say, small talk I could attempt. But every instinct screams at me to keep my distance. To turn the conversation into something brief and forgettable. Why? I was never scared of Eric back then; sad that he obviously lost interest in me so quickly, but never scared.
So why are alarm bells sounding in my head?
Eric flicks the cigarette away and steps closer. The smell of stale smoke clings to him, mixed with something sour, like old adrenaline.
“Didn’t think I’d see you here.” His eyes sweep over me. Not appreciative. Assessing. Like he’s trying to read behind my ribs. “Didn’t you want to move out west? Do land management or something? You look good.”
My skin crawls.
“Just visiting for work,” I say, which is technically true.
His eyebrows lift slowly. “Where’s your kid? She must be what—six now?”
“Yes.” I force a polite smile. “Six.”
He whistles softly, low under his breath. “Crazy. You were just pregnant the last time I saw you.” He takes another step toward me. My pulse jumps. A warning bell inside me clangs hard.
After that weekend with Kat in Bar Harbor, after that night with Makari in the bank, I’d gone back to school. Unsuspecting. Na?ve.
Only to find out a month later, I was pregnant.
Kat assumed I would quit classes, but I didn’t; Mom encouraged me to stay on if I wanted to and take online courses.
I was so close to finishing my bachelor’s.
It was easier than I expected once I got myself on a schedule and learned to catnap in the car in between classes.
What I hadn’t thought of was having to see Eric on campus and having to let go of friends who were mortified by my situation and the decision to keep my baby.
I didn’t want him near me back then, and I sure as hell don’t want him near me now.
“Look,” I say gently, “I actually have an appointment—”
He cuts in, eyes looking at the SUV I stepped out of. “Nice ride.”
I swallow. The air suddenly feels thin.
“Oh. It’s not mine; mine is in the shop. They—work—gave me a loaner until it’s fixed.”
He takes another step forward, body angling to get a better view past me.
“‘They’?” he repeats. “Who’s ‘they’?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say quickly. Too quickly. The windows are tinted; hopefully he can’t see Vadim inside.
His gaze sharpens. “Roxy. Who brought you here? That SUV is much too nice for—”
Behind me, I hear the car door shut. Eric’s brows go slack as he stares over my shoulder. My heartbeat kicks faster. With a glance, I see Vadim is out and walking around to the passenger side to lean casually against the door, thumb looped into his holster.
Eric tilts his head. “That an Ursa Arcane vehicle?” He says it too casually.
My stomach drops.
I can’t tell if he knows what that means or if he’s guessing, but either way I need this conversation to end.
“It’s work business,” I say. “Really, Eric, I have to—”
He lifts a hand, holding it just inches from my arm.
“I’m just asking. Damn. No need to get defensive.”
The shiver that races up my spine is cold enough to bite. He used to say that. Back when I tried to break up with him the first time. Don’t get defensive, Roxy. I’m just talking.
Back when I didn’t understand the difference between charm and manipulation.
“I’m not being defensive,” I say carefully. “I’m trying to get to my appointment.”
He studies my face longer than he should. Something dark flickers in his expression. “You look nervous.”
I force a breath. “I’m late.”
Eric’s smile lifts again, but it’s wrong. Off. The kind of smile someone gives when they’re imagining something you can’t see.
“Well,” he says lightly, “maybe we’ll catch up sometime.”
“I don’t think so.”
The words slip out before I can soften them. His smile wavers.
I don’t care.
He reaches for me—hesitating, maybe deciding against touching me—but the movement is enough to make my stomach twist. Time to anchor the exit.
“I have to go,” I say again, already stepping away. “Take care, Eric.”
His eyes narrow just slightly. “You too, Roxy.”
I turn on my heel, heart pounding, and head straight for the attorney’s building. Vadim is a shadow behind me, silent but unsettlingly attentive.
Inside the office, nausea swirls in my gut. I grip the doorframe and breathe.
The receptionist waves me in, cheerful and oblivious to the ice in my bloodstream. I force myself to sit, sign papers, initial boxes, nod in all the correct places. The house is officially mine, but the relief doesn’t come. Not yet. Not with Eric’s hollow eyes still burned into my mind.
What the hell is he doing here in Bar Harbor?
Then I remember—his uncle. His uncle was on the police force here. Suddenly, the papers feel like a chain trapping me here, with a man I don’t trust. He changed so much…something is wrong.
When I step back outside, Vadim is still standing by the SUV, door open. He says nothing until I slide into the back seat. Then he turns slightly, voice low. “Friend of yours?”
“No,” I say posthaste. Vadim is the kind of employee who, without a doubt, tells his employer everything; and I don’t need any more complications right now. I don’t need Makari to know my ex is here. Especially not after his ‘warning’ about Andi’s father. “No, just someone I used to know.”
He waits, watching me again with that sharp, assessing calm.
I clear my throat. “Please don’t mention this to Mr. Medvedev.”
His expression doesn’t change. “Why would I mention it?”
I press my lips together. “Because he’s…my employer. And you all report things to him.”
“Do you believe he should know?”
“No,” I blurt. “I—no. It’s nothing. Eric just surprised me. That’s all.”
Vadim watches me another long, unsettling beat before he closes the door and walks around to the driver’s seat. As we pull away from the curb, I take one last glance in the side mirror.
Eric is still on the sidewalk.
A chill slides down my spine.
I face forward, pressing a palm to my stomach to steady the nerves that won’t stop jumping. Makari wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t.
He’s busy. Preoccupied. Running a criminal empire. He’s not sitting by the window wondering where I am or who I’m talking to.
He doesn’t see me that way.
Even after the cabin—after everything we did—he pulled back. He let me go. He let silence settle between us for a week.
It meant nothing to him.
It was just an impulse, a memory reawakened, and a quick release. Which is fine because that’s all it was to me, too.
So why am I sitting in the back of this SUV praying that no one mentions my ex’s name? Why am I afraid of what Makari would do?
Only the faint echo of his voice in my head.
If he ever shows up, he’ll regret ever looking away from you two.
He said it like a promise. Tears gather at the corners of my eyes at how fucked up it all is. He doesn’t know, and I can’t tell him.
I look out the window at the passing streets, the pale morning light breaking through the clouds, the neat rows of homes. Mine is somewhere back in the woods, near the river. I can’t quite believe it.
I should feel safe. Instead, all I can think about is danger—Eric’s hollow eyes, his questions, the way he blocked the sunlight when he stepped too close.
And the far more frightening thought: Makari is a storm. Eric is smoke. And I’m caught between a man who could destroy the world and a man who looks like the world destroyed him.
The SUV turns onto the coastal road, heading back toward the estate. I hope Vadim dismisses this morning as nothing.
But hope feels thin and unreliable.
Because the truth I can’t shake—the truth I haven’t admitted even in the quietest corners of my mind—is that I don’t actually know what Makari feels for me.
There is a possibility. A very small chance that he does care. What if he does?
The SUV rumbles as we pull onto the estate’s long drive, dappled sunlight spilling gorgeously over the gravel. My heart skips a beat in anticipation. Vadim’s eyes narrow in the rearview mirror, as if he can sense the change in the air.
“You finish here,” he says more than asks, “and then I’ll bring you back to the shop for your car. Dima has your daughter.”
I nod absently, more worried about Makari’s right-hand man than my daughter, who likely has him pulling his hair out or wrapped around her finger by now.
As we pull up to the house, the section that the business operates out of is like a fortress—a dark, hulking shadow waits within the alcove.
His eyes are locked on the SUV, and it’s as if he knows everything that’s happened from the moment I left until right now.
If Makari does care, if he hears that I’ve been talking to another man, then the man I kissed in that cabin might burn the whole damn town down.
And I don’t know whether that terrifies me or thrills me.