Chapter 2
"Perfect," Darren said easily.
I nodded, because a year earlier, not nodding had ended with a lamp shattered against my apartment wall.
The server drifted away. Darren sat back, pleased with my obedience, and lifted his wineglass like we were celebrating something.
That was when I really noticed the man at the next table. He sat alone with a low glass of whiskey in one hand, the other resting flat against white linen. Black suit, charcoal tie, dark hair brushed back from a face carved from old discipline and very little mercy. He wasn't watching us directly. That was the frightening part. He was looking at his glass. Listening.
You can feel a room change around danger. It goes thinner somehow, sharper. Before Darren spoke, that man had been still the way wealthy, tired men are when they're used to being left alone. After the threat, his stillness hardened into something else entirely.
Darren followed my eyes and gave a soft, ugly laugh. "Don't do that," he said.
"Do what?" I whispered.
"Look around for help." His smile widened. "No one ever helps, Elena. That's the first lesson women like you never learn."
Women like you. Quiet women. Careful women. Women who mistook endurance for loyalty and kept hoping love could be persuaded not to hurt.
"I'm going to the restroom," Darren said, pushing back his chair. "And when I come back, I want that frightened little look off your face. You know I hate it when you make me look bad." He bent as if to kiss my cheek. Instead his lips brushed the air beside my ear. "Try to leave, and I'll find you before you make it to the sidewalk."
May you like
Then he walked away, and I stayed frozen, because for months I had imagined what freedom would feel like when it finally came, and I had never imagined that terror could survive a breakup and follow me into a candlelit restaurant wearing a pleasant smile.
"Are you here by choice?"
