49. Zyran #2
I lean against the counter for a second and just listen to him work.
Thinking back to everything that he’s done for her—keeping her hidden, checking in, making sure she was okay from whatever distance he had to maintain to keep her safe.
He found her new cities and carried the weight of knowing where she was when nobody else did.
I didn’t know her then, didn’t know any of this was happening. I just watched her from the corner of the coffee shop, telling myself it was a habit while she was trying to build a life out of whatever scraps felt safe enough to touch.
Esperr could’ve been alone through all of it.
But she wasn’t because she had him.
And I’m glad she did.
Pushing off the counter I finally get back to work—wrapping her broken coffee cup in a dish towel before placing it on the table so I can take it. Maybe I can get one of my brothers?—
“She eat enough?” Oliver calls from the other room, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I pause and straighten up and turn around. “What?”
Oliver stands there in the middle of the living room, staring at me.
“When she was here, or really anywhere. Did she eat enough?” A pause, and I blink like an idiot.
“She forgets sometimes when things get bad. Sometimes she’d eat a bowl of cereal and think that was all she needed to survive the day. ”
Five days. For five days I was the one moving through her kitchen, and she was the one existing in her own place, letting me.
I think about how she never once opened a cabinet or the fridge on her own.
Not once. She’d come out of the bedroom, the coffee would be there, and eventually I’d feed her breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
I never realized she ate it because it was in front of her.
And I think about the mornings I made her eggs, and she’d eat everything on the plate, looking genuinely surprised afterward.
It was almost like she forgot what it felt like to be full.
I think about how many times I put something in front of her and she ate it without comment, and I thought she was just being easy to feed, and now I’m realizing wasn’t it at all.
If I hadn’t cooked, she wouldn’t have eaten.
And for some reason that made me happy but also irritated. She needed to take care of herself, but I had a feeling she struggled because of her migraines and because she was always on the run.
When I realized I hadn’t answered, I coughed and shifted on my feet. “Yeah, she…she ate.”
Oliver looks at me, and slowly something in his expression shifts before his shoulder drops. “Good.”
He turns back around, setting the coffee table back right, and I go back to the kitchen, as we both go back to working in silence.
It’s only for a few minutes before I hear him again. “I tried to find you.”
I glance over my shoulder, raising a brow.
“A few weeks ago, she mentioned you,” he sighs, not looking at me. “I tried running your name but couldn’t find anything.” Oliver pauses. “That’s unusual.”
I hum and look away.
“For most people it’s not. For someone dating a girl I’ve been keeping hidden from a killer for three years… that’s unusual."
I could ignore him, but I have a feeling Oliver’s the kind of person that won’t shut the fuck up.
“I have a brother who likes to keep my… let’s say, affairs, quiet.”
Oliver turns and looks at me with an expression that’s a crossover between amused, concerned, and a tad bit confused.
“That sounds dangerous,” he mutters.
“It can be.”
“For who?” His eyes harden.
I give him nothing, keeping my face neutral and emotionless. “Depends on the day.”
He looks at me for a long moment. “What do you do?”
I hold his gaze. I’m usually not one to go blabbering about what I do, especially to strangers. But I guess he’s not exactly a stranger to my world—our world.
“Same thing you do,” I finally say. “Just on the opposite side.”
His eyes narrow, hands fisted at his side. “I keep people safe—hidden.”
“Yeah, and I make sure the people who threaten them don’t get another chance to do it.”
The silence after the words leave my mouth is almost deafening, and the weight of what I said sits between us.
And I see him calculating, trying to read between the lines—the moment he figures it out, his jaw shifts while his tongue darts out, swiping over the silver hoop in the middle of his lip.
He’s trying to read me the way people do when they’re trying to decide how much of a threat I am.
Deadly—though I wouldn’t hurt Oliver. Not unless he did something to Esperr; then I’d kill him.
“Does she know?” he suddenly asks.
“Yes.”
Something crosses his face, both brows rising before dropping, almost like he’s not surprised Esperr would know.
He turns away from me, dropping to the coffee table before leaning forward on his elbows. “And she stayed.”
“She did.”
“She never tells me anything she thinks is going to make me worry. Hasn’t since the moment we met. Not unless she absolutely has to.”
“I know.”
Oliver gives me a look of someone measuring something they’re not sure about just yet. Like he doesn’t trust me, but I guess he doesn’t have a good enough reason to. “That wasn’t a compliment to you.”
I roll my eyes, muttering, “I know.”
My phone goes off just then, and I’m grateful for it.
“Give me a minute,” I barely muttered to Oliver before yanking my phone out of my pocket and stepping toward her room.
Rhys' names came across my screen, and I couldn’t swipe fast enough. “What do you know?”
“Oliver Reeves,” Rhys says, keys still clicking in the background. “He’s clean, no record, nothing interesting.”
I don’t really give a shit about Oliver currently, but I don’t say that to Rhys, because if he has something to say about Oliver, it’s important somehow.
“Melody Allan… that’s Esperr’s true identity.
After I found that I was able to pull up their history, and went back through her father’s last job.
Found a name floating around in the dark web—Michael Holt.
It’s not much lower level; it’s more like small jobs he took here and there.
It seems about two years ago he dropped off completely; the last trace I’ve got is a cash appointment—he made sure no one could follow it. ”
I stand just inside her bedroom, seeing the destroyed bed and the mirror she kept on her dresser that’s smashed to pieces. And I think back to how just a week ago we were lying there, I was holding her in my arms, and it felt like no one could touch her.
“I’ll keep digging…” he trails off, and just when I think he’s going to hang up, he’s mumbling, “I just wanted to give you what I have so far.”
I swallow around the emotions threatening to claw up inside me. Refusing to let it grab ahold of me, I hang up and shove my phone back into my pocket.
Melody Allan.
The girl who got her entire life ripped away from her.