ALESSIA
Soon, little bird.
Aiden read it out loud once, flatly, and then set the phone down on the counter like it had grown too hot to hold.
"Little bird," Carter repeated, quiet, testing the phrase the way he tested everything, for the shape of the damage underneath it. "Did he call you that. Before."
"When I was compliant," I said. "It was the version of affection he offered when I did what he wanted without being told twice. I hadn't heard it in three years. I'd almost let myself forget he ever used it."
"He's using it now to remind you he remembers exactly who you were," Ryker said, and there was something in his voice that had gone past anger into something colder and more useful. "Which means this isn't just a threat. It's an attempt to collapse three weeks of becoming someone
