AVA
The damp Shoreditch air clung to my skin as I walked away from the safe house, coat pulled tight around me. My legs felt heavy, but I kept moving, flagging down the first black cab I saw. I gave the driver my old apartment address without thinking. I needed familiar walls to breathe.
When I pushed open the door to my apartment twenty minutes later, the lights were still on from the night before. And there, sitting on the edge of the kitchen island with the same folder in his lap, was Julian.
I stopped dead in the doorway.
“What are you still doing here?” I asked, voice flat with exhaustion.
He stood slowly, looking rumpled in yesterday’s shirt, eyes tired but determined. “Waiting for you, Ava. We have an unfinished discussion from last night. You left rather abruptly.”
For a seco
