After the Matteo call, Cillian had disappeared into the bathroom for twenty minutes. I'd ordered room service because he told me to and because arguing with a man who'd just mobilized people across the country for my twelve-year-old brother felt petty.
When he came back out, he wasn't in the suit. He wasn't in the towel either, which was a separate thing I was not going to acknowledge.
He was in a black t-shirt and grey joggers.
I'd seen Cillian Volkov in tailored coats and crisp shirts and once, very briefly and very unfortunately, in nothing but a towel and steam. But I had never seen him look like this. Like a normal person. The t-shirt was plain and fitted and it made his shoulders look broader in a way that felt unfair, and the joggers hung low on his hips, and his hair was still damp and pushed back from his face without any of the usual precision.
He leaned against the kitchenette counter, scrolling through his phone, and didn't notice me staring.
This was my husband. Technically. Legally. On paper signed by a man I shared blood with but not much else. And standing here in hotel joggers with wet hair, he looked less like a man who ran an empire and more like someone I might've met at a coffee shop. Someone I might've actually chosen.
That thought arrived uninvited and I shoved it back where it came from.
He looked up. "You ate."
"I ate."
"Without being told twice."
"Don't get used to it."
He pocketed his phone and crossed his arms. "Matteo is secure. My people are outside the house, no one gets in or out without my authorization."
The relief was physical. My shoulders dropped and something behind my ribs unclenched for the first time since I'd read Matteo's text. I blinked hard and looked at the carpet because I was not going to cry in front of this man.
"Thank you," I said.
He watched me.
"For Matteo," I added. "For doing that. I know you didn't have to."
Surprise crossed his face, there and gone. "You're thanking me?"
"Don't make it weird."
"I'm not making it weird. You're the one who looks like it physically hurt you to say it."
"It did. A little. Right here." I pressed my hand to my chest. "I think I pulled something."
His mouth nearly curved but didn't quite commit. He stayed leaning against the counter, watching me with that patient look that made me feel like a puzzle he was three pieces away from finishing.
"You could just say 'you're welcome,'" I said.
"You're welcome."
"See? That wasn't so hard."
"Easier than watching you choke on gratitude, yes."
I threw the pillow at him. He caught it one-handed without blinking and set it on the counter like a file someone had passed him.
"You're not going anywhere alone today," he said, switching topics without warning the way he always did. "Not while we don't know who's sending those texts."
"I have class. I've already missed days. More absences mean more flags on Evie Ross, and she can't afford flags right now."
He didn't like it. I could see the refusal building behind his jaw.
"Let me figure something out," he said.
Which meant: I'm going to stall this until you forget you asked. I knew that tone. I'd grown up around men who used it. My father pulled it every time I asked about my future or anything that required him to treat me like a person instead of a line item.
But I didn't push. He'd just told me my brother was safe. I could give him an hour.
"Fine," I said.
He grabbed his phone again. "I have a meeting I can't move. I'll be back by noon." He headed for the door. "The hotel knows not to let anyone up. Room service is under my name. Eat something else if you're hungry."
He paused at the door. Looked back at me sitting cross-legged on the bed with toast crumbs on my shirt.
"Stay here, Ava," he said.
"I will."
He left. The room went quiet.
I stayed for exactly forty-two minutes.
It wasn't my fault. I was sitting on the bed, fully dressed, shoes on, behaving like an adult who kept her promises. Then Lana's text hit.
Lana:Evie. Jason went to the dean's office this morning. He's filing a welfare concern about you. He told Elena he has "evidence" your enrollment records are fabricated. He's going to your 10am lecture to find you. PLEASE call me.
I read it three times.
A welfare concern meant an official review. Someone pulling my application, my transcripts, my social security number. Everything I'd stitched together with fake documents, picked apart by a registrar with a computer and twenty minutes.
Cillian couldn't help with this. Cillian walking into a dean's office would turn a problem into a catastrophe. This was a Jason problem, and Jason problems required a human touch, not a mafia one.
I grabbed my bag and slipped out the side entrance while his people were pulled to his meeting. Hood up, head down, campus bus two blocks over.
The lecture hall was half full when I came through the back door. I found a seat near the wall, pulled out my notebook, and tried to focus.
For ten minutes, it almost worked.
Then Jason dropped into the seat beside me.
"We need to talk," he said. "Your records are fake, Evie. Your previous university doesn't exist. The address on your application is a PO box in Delaware. I checked."
My stomach dropped. "You pulled my enrollment records? How did you even get access to—"
"I have a friend in admissions. The point is, whoever you are, you're not Evie Ross." He searched my face. "I'm not trying to hurt you. That man last night, is he forcing you into something? Are you in witness protection?"
"Jason." I gripped his wrist under the desk. "If you file that welfare report, you will put me in more danger than you can imagine. Not from him. From people he's protecting me from."
"That doesn't make sense."
"I know it doesn't. But I need you to trust me."
"Trust you? I don't even know your real name."
The words landed heavy between us.
Professor McKinley cleared his throat from the front. "If the back row could save the drama for after class, that'd be terrific."
I spent the next thirty minutes staring at my notebook without absorbing a word, Jason buzzing with questions beside me. The second McKinley dismissed us, he turned to me.
"I already sent the email," he said.
My blood went cold. "What?"
"To the dean's office. This morning." Guilt and conviction fought across his face. "I had to, Evie. If something happens to you and I didn't say anything—"
"Who else knows?" My voice came out flat. "Jason. Who did you tell?"
He hesitated. That hesitation told me everything.
"My friend in admissions. And campus security already had the photo of you and that guy from the gossip page, so they were asking questions—"
Movement at the end of the hall cut through everything else.
Cillian was walking toward us.
Students moved out of his way without understanding why. He'd changed into the suit. Of course he had. The man I'd left in joggers forty minutes ago now looked like someone who bought buildings for fun. His eyes found mine and held on, and I watched his gaze register where I was, who I was standing next to, and how far I was from the hotel where he'd told me to stay.
Jason straightened, squaring his shoulders like he had any idea what he was standing in front of.
Cillian stopped close enough to touch me. His hand found the small of my back, warm and firm, and he didn't look at Jason when he spoke.
"Ava," he said. Just my name. My real name, quiet enough that only the three of us heard it.
Jason's face changed. I watched him hear it. Not Evie. Ava.
Cillian's eyes finally moved to Jason. He studied him the way you study something you're deciding whether to step over or step on.
"You've been busy," Cillian said to him. Conversational. Almost pleasant. The most dangerous tone I'd heard from him yet.
I stepped between them on instinct and Cillian's hand tightened, pulling me against his side.
"Not here," I said. "Please."
His jaw worked. I could feel what it cost him to pull that focus from Jason back to me. When he looked down, his eyes were dark and steady in a way that made my chest ache.
"My wife left the hotel without telling me," he said, barely above a murmur. "We'll discuss that later."
The word later shouldn't have sent heat through my stomach. But his mouth was close to my ear and his hand was spread warm across my lower back and discuss sounded like it meant something else entirely.
I really needed to get a grip.
Then, he turned to Jason, "Your email to the dean's office. Who else has seen what you found?"
Jason paled. "How do you know about—"
"Answer the question."
Jason swallowed. "My friend in admissions. A couple guys from my floor. And campus security was already asking around because of the photo, so—"
He didn't finish.
The dean's office. Campus security. Admissions. Three separate offices now had a reason to pull Evie Ross's file and find nothing underneath.
Cillian's hand on my back went still.
I looked up at him. He looked down at me.
And in the silence between us, I understood something with perfect, terrible clarity.
Evie Ross was dead.