STELLA
The library smells like old paper and varnish—warm, familiar, and suffocating all at once.
I didn’t come here to see him.
I didn’t come here hoping he’d show up.
But when you spend every minute pretending not to look over your shoulder, the moment you catch a flash of icy blue from across the shelves, your breath still hitches.
Mine does.
Viktor moves like a shadow. Silent, deliberate. I don’t even hear him approach until he’s standing directly behind me, his presence loud in the silence.
I turn a page in the art book I’m pretending to study. Don’t react. Don’t look.
Too late.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” he says, voice low.
My fingers curl against the edge of the page.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Viktor steps around the table, his hand bracing the edge as
