58

Dorian's POV

The decision to break into Leonora’s phone wasn’t one I took lightly.

She’d be a nightmare if she found out, and the last thing I needed was for her to start becoming even more unpredictable.

The only person she had been talking to lately was Vivian. I was the one who pushed the two of them together, so I had only myself to blame, though I still believed it was a smart move. The problem now was that Leonora was confiding in Vivian, which meant she no longer had to tell me anything.

So, bugging her phone to make sure she wasn’t planning to vanish into the night and disappear for good felt like my only option.

As I scrolled through her messages, I didn’t find anything particularly suspicious—just a few texts between her and friends in Moscow and a string of unanswered messages from our mother. Nothing alarming.

I almost didn’t check her call log at all. Leonora never used her phone to actually make calls. But I was nothing if not thorough.

The only call she’d made in the last five days was to a number that wasn’t saved in her contacts.

A number I immediately recognized.

My grip tightened around the phone just as I heard footsteps behind me. “There you are,” Vivian said. “You didn’t sleep in your room again. I’m starting to wonder if I smell or—”

I spun around, grabbed Vivian by the arm, and pulled her against me. She yelped, but the sound died as I pinned her between my body and the countertop.

“When did you steal my sister’s phone?” I growled.

“I didn’t steal anything. What are you talking about?”

She tried to shake me off, but I pressed her down with my hips and held up Leonora’s phone. “I know you called Gemma.”

Her expression shifted, emotions flashing across her face almost too quickly to catch. “I didn’t steal anything.”

“But you did call Gemma,” I said, my voice low and firm. “You lied to me.”

“No. No, I didn’t.”

“What do you call this?” I roared, my temper flaring.

Vivian stretched onto her toes, her body brushing against mine. The friction made it hard to stay as angry as I wanted. I took a step back, but she closed the gap, pressing closer. “Leonora let me borrow her phone. She wanted me to talk to my friend. I didn’t tell Gemma anything.”

“Bullshit. Why would you call her if you weren’t passing information?”

“Have you ever heard of having friends?” Vivian threw her hands up in frustration. “I was proving to her that you haven’t locked me in a dungeon somewhere. And for the record, I didn’t tell her about the time you *did* actually lock me up.”

I grimaced. “I’m starting to regret letting you out every day.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Believe it or not, people in my life care about me. They want to make sure I’m okay.”

“Real life,” I snapped, rolling my eyes. As if everything here had been some kind of break from reality, some detour before she returned to her crappy apartment, her lousy job, and those terrible blind dates her cousin set her up on.

“There’s no ‘real life’ without me. Don’t you get that? The only reason you’re still breathing is because I’m keeping you alive.” My voice was sharp. “Do your friends know a man was waiting outside your apartment the morning after we met? If they knew how fast he would’ve put a bullet in your skull, they’d be thanking me for everything I’ve done.”

Vivian’s eyes widened, her skin going pale. Damn, I’d scared her.

I needed her to wake up and take things seriously. She was in real danger, and she needed to start acting like it. But the fear in her eyes dulled my anger, replacing it with a different urge. I didn’t want to lock her up; I wanted to pull her against my chest.

Forcing myself to take a step back, I clenched my teeth. “Running away would be a mistake. If you leave this house, you’ll get yourself killed.”

“Do you really think I’m trying to run away?”

“You’re sneaking around, calling your friend, and tricking my sister into lending you her phone. Running seems like the next step.”

“You think I’m—You told me to get close to Leonora. I’ve been doing that *for you*.”

“And helping yourself along the way,” I muttered. “You’re clever, Vivian. No sense of self-preservation, but you know how to work a situation to your advantage.”

She let out a frustrated scream. “You are so infuriating!” “The feeling’s mutual.”

She poked me hard in the chest. “Do you know how easily I could’ve run away if I wanted to? I went jogging twice this week, and there weren’t any guards at the gate. I could’ve jumped the fence and been gone before anyone noticed. Probably before *you* noticed, since you’re never around anymore.”

She was right. At first, I’d been hyper-focused on her. I wanted to know where she was, what she was doing, every minute of the day. Somewhere along the line, I stopped worrying about Vivian leaving and became more concerned that someone else might take her.

When the hell had that shift happened?