Elise noticed.
“You should be in a hospital.”
“I have physicians.”
“You walked out anyway?”
“I was informed somebody had located you.”
The simplicity of the answer silenced her.
He had left medical care because someone was following the woman who had saved him.
Not because she belonged to him.
Because, in his mind, her danger belonged to him.
There was a difference.
Not necessarily a comforting one.
Elise packed one bag.
She refused the suitcase one of Matteo’s men offered her and used her own battered overnight bag instead.
She called her manager at the restaurant and said she was ill.
She texted the woman who covered her swimming classes.
Then, using the attorney’s number Matteo had given her, she explained exactly what was happening and where she had been told she would be taken.
Matteo waited by the door without interrupting.
Only when she finished did he say, “Ready?”
“No.”
His mouth almost curved.
“Neither am I.”
The convoy moved through the rain.
Elise sat in the rear of the second SUV with Matteo beside her.
The scarred man rode in front.
Nobody played music.
Nobody made conversation.
Every few blocks, the vehicles changed positions.
Elise watched storefronts slide past and wondered how her life had changed so violently in less than one day.
Yesterday morning she had been arguing with her landlord about a dripping pipe.
Now a man rumored to control half the city was bleeding through a bandage beneath his thousand-dollar suit while armed security watched every intersection.
The secure house turned out to be quieter than she expected.
No marble palace.
No underground bunker.
Just a large private home beyond the city, surrounded by trees, cameras, and men who never appeared to relax.
A doctor redressed Elise’s arm.
Another examined Matteo and ordered him to lie down.
Matteo ignored the second instruction for almost twenty minutes before his body made the decision for him.
Elise saw him lower himself carefully onto a sofa, jaw clenched against pain.
“You know,” she said, “for someone supposedly terrifying, you’re terrible at following instructions.”
He looked at her.
“You ran into an exploding ocean.”
“Fair point.”
The scarred man entered carrying the black folder and a sealed evidence bag containing a phone.
“We have an identification on the photographer,” he said.
Elise stiffened.
Matteo sat forward.
“Talk.”
“He was hired after the crash.
His instructions were to follow the woman who came out of the water with you and determine whether you had given her anything.”
“I gave her nothing.”
“They don’t know that.”
The scarred man placed the phone on the table.
“He also received her hospital departure time and home address from somebody monitoring emergency communications.”
Elise felt suddenly cold.
“They got my address that quickly?”
“Yes.”
