Chapter 85 Adeline
Adeline’s POV
By Thursday morning, I was afraid I was stuck in a routine that I would never be able to break free from.
My day went like this. Wake up on Zara’s couch. Drink a double espresso. Wear something Zara has laid out for me. Walk into Royal and Associates and spend fourteen hours pretending that the man who owned the entire firm and the entire building hadn't completely shattered my heart.
I was surviving, just like I always did, but the ghost was restless. The ghost wanted something more, but I couldn't get it right now.
The wind this morning was even more brutal as I stepped out of Zara’s building. I pulled the lapels of my charcoal coat tighter against my chest as I made my daily stop at the coffee cart on the corner.
"The usual, Ms. Adeline?" the vendor smiled, already reaching for a large cup.
"Please," I nodded, handing him a twenty. "And the second one with the bagels, as well."
I turned toward the subway grate where I knew the man in the tattered army jacket would be, exactly where he had been every morning this week. This morning was no different. He was sitting with his knees pulled to his chest, but today, he wasn't looking at the ground. He was already watching me.
His dark eyes tracked my movements with an intensity that made me feel a tiny prickle of wariness, but I pushed it down. He was just a man who was cold and hungry, and I reminded myself that I knew exactly what that felt like.
I walked over and put the bag down in front of him. "Good morning," I said softly, keeping a polite distance.
He took the bag with his dirt-stained fingers brushing the paper, but his eyes never left my face, and there was a strange, twisted smile on his face.
"You're always looking over your shoulder, angel," he murmured, his voice a raspy, grating whisper. "You don't have to do that anymore. I'm keeping an eye out for you now. Nobody’s going to sneak up on you."
My spine stiffened. I know he probably meant it to show how grateful he was to me, but something about the sheer familiarity of it made me deeply uncomfortable. I didn't want a stranger studying my habits or noticing my paranoia.
"Eat your breakfast," I said, a little bit coldly as I stood up, taking three deliberate steps back. "Stay warm."
I turned on my heel and walked briskly toward the subway entrance.
"He’s just trying to be nice, Adeline. There's nothing to be scared of. Not everyone is out to get to you," I said to myself to rationalize the vibe I got from him.
I boarded the crowded train, and I found myself missing the days where I could get some work done on my way to work, but here I was, wedged between a group of college students and a man reading the paper.
I reminded myself that this used to be my life before I met Percy, so I kept my head down and focused on my breathing, trying to shake the lingering feeling of discomfort.
Three stops later, the train screeched to a halt at my stop, and I stepped off the car, merging with the massive flow of commuters heading for the escalators. As I reached the top of the stairs, I paused to adjust the strap of my leather briefcase. As I had been doing since I started taking care of my own transport, I glanced casually over my shoulder to make sure I was not being followed.
I usually never found any suspicious figures, but this morning, my breath hitched because moving steadily through the swarm of rushing people trying to get to different places was the tattered, oversized army jacket.
The wariness I was feeling quickly spiked into fear.
"It’s a coincidence," my logical brain argued desperately. He probably just takes this train down to Wall Street. It's a public station, after all.
Still, I picked up my pace, practically speed-walking out of the station and onto the bustling sidewalk. I didn't look back again until I was safely across the street, standing in the shadow of the Royal and Associates building. I stopped behind a newspaper stand and peeked around the edge to see what was happening now, to see if he had followed me or if it was just a coincidence, as I wanted.
Unfortunately, he was standing on the opposite corner. He wasn't asking anyone for change. He was standing perfectly still with his hands tucked into his pockets, staring directly at me through the crowds. He must have seen me as I was trying to hide; that only made me more terrified.
Not only had he followed me, he had used the subway to track me from Soho to my place of work.
There was only one way this could have happened. Ilya Kozlov, my father. I wouldn't put this past him at all. I know the police said he had disappeared, but I knew him. He could do this. He was very capable of paying off a homeless man to track me down. The homeless man that I had carelessly formed an attachment with was a man that was a scout.
After our eyes met, I ran. My heels clicked frantically against the pavement. I threw my shoulder into the heavy glass doors of the building and stumbled into the secure lobby.
"Ms. Volkov!" the security guard behind the front desk called out, alarmed by my sudden entrance. "Are you alright?"
"I’m fine," I choked out. "I just... I thought I was late."
I backed away from the desk and moved towards the elevator. I hit the call button, my entire body shaking uncontrollably.
He knew where I slept. He knew where I worked. He knew I had lost the protection of the billionaire who used to stand beside me. My father might have finally found the opening he had been waiting for.
I was very thankful when the elevator opened and I found it empty. I slumped against the wall and remained like that until the elevator pinged, signaling my arrival on my floor. It was then that I realized that being in the building was not the safety I thought it was.
I wasn't free at all. I was just entirely alone in the dark. Ordinarily, I would paste a polite smile on my face before facing my coworkers, but not today. My hands were shaking so violently that the strap of my briefcase slipped from my fingers and hit the polished tile with a loud smack. That made all the files I had taken home with me spill all over the floor.
I looked up to see that the entire office had gone silent and was now staring at me.
Chloe and Lauren stopped talking by the water cooler. I looked past them to lock eyes with Percy. For some reason, he was on my floor and had now witnessed the whole thing.
For some reason, the look on his face when he saw the terrified look in mine scared me more than anything my father and his army of homeless men might do.