Is it a wolf?
Coyote?
Keep going, Liliya.
I nearly drop my phone when it rings.
A number I don’t recognize flashes on the screen.
While Dasha’s calls have been coming up asUnknown Number, maybe she’s calling me from a different phone.
I immediately answer the call. “Dasha?”
“You’d better get your fucking ass back to the house.”
I stop dead in my tracks at the harsh voice on the other line. The hairs on the back of my neck stand, and a breeze knocks through the air, causing leaves to fall around me. It’s like Emilio’s command was a threat to everyone and everything around me.
“I’ll be atour homein ten minutes, and your ass had better be there,” he sneers.
I release a shaky breath, hoping I sound more confident than I feel. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m sitting in bed?—”
“Bull-fucking-shit,” he hisses.
“I’m sitting here, journaling about how much I don’t like you.” I inhale another breath and change my tone, sounding almost whiny. “Dear Diary, I feel like a princess locked in a tower. Maybe I need to grow out my hair to escape this place.”
“Get your fucking ass back in the house,” he says, each word leaving him slow and clear in warning.
“Iamin the house,” I huff out.
“You’re in the woods.”
I do a circle, searching as if he were looking down on me from somewhere. “Honey”—I force a laugh—“did you have a little too much to drink tonight?”
“What did I tell you would happen the next time you ran off?”
Fuck, the toes.
He threatened the little piggy that went to the market.
He’s also made, like, a hundred other threats, so it’s hard to keep track. I should make a list, starting with the one he made at Dasha’s engagement party.
I decide not to reply. If he did forget, don’t want to give him any torture ideas.
“The housenow, Liliya.”
“I am in the house, Emilio.”
My phone beeps, another call coming through.
“Crap,” I mutter, pulling the phone away from my face to findUnknown Numberflashing.
It has to be Dasha.
“Hold that thought, sir.” I switch the call over without waiting for his response.
Emilio may know I’m not at the house or that I’m in the woods, but he doesn’t knowwherein the woods. It’ll take him a while to search it, and hopefully, I’ll be long gone.
“Dasha,” I say into the speaker. “Where are you? Did you get my location ping?”
