Page 107 of Mile High Ex's Dad
Instead I say, “I’ll try.”
Then I head the rest of the way to my room alone, very aware of how much more awkward that hallway would have been if he hadn’t appeared when he did.
I go back to my room and lock it. I don’t want Ethan showing up at my door again tonight. I reach for my journal but it’s nowhere to be found. I check my bag again, and then my bedside, but it’s nowhere to be seen.
My journal is gone.
15
VIKTOR
“What’s going on?”I ask.
Yuri doesn’t answer right away. He just jerks his head toward the rear exit and keeps walking.
That alone is enough to tell me this is not routine.
I follow him out through the side door and into the night. The grounds are mostly dark now, the main paths lit by low garden lamps, the rest of the estate falling away into wet grass, hedges, and shadow. The air is cold enough to wake me fully. Somewhere in the distance, one of the security men is making his rounds.
Yuri leads me off the main terrace and around the side of the house, toward the stretch of lawn below the bridal wing. Only when we’re out of sight of the lit windows does he stop.
“Well?”
He reaches into his coat and holds something out in his palm.
For a second I don’t recognize it.
Then I do.
It’s a small black piece of metal. Narrow. Threaded.
A suppressor mount.
I look at him. “Where?”
“In the hedges below the east lawn,” he says. “One of the men found disturbed ground during patrol. Broken branches. Compressed grass. Good line of sight to the breakfast setup.”
I take the piece from him and turn it once between my fingers.
Cold. Real.
“Not old?” I ask.
“No.”
That’s enough. He doesn’t need to say the rest.
The poisoned champagne was a red herring.
He pulls out his phone and shows me two photos. The first is of a patch of earth behind the hedge line, partly hidden by low stone edging and wet leaves. The second is a closer shot. A heel print. Deep enough to hold shape in the mud. Hard to tell if it’s from a man or a woman.
I hand the phone back.
The house glows behind us through the trees, warm and elegant and full of liars.
Yuri says out loud what I was just thinking in my head. “Someone in the wedding party may try to kill you.”
I look back toward the east lawn.
