HIS INVISIBLE CAPTIVE.

CHAPTER 4 The Rules

Dimitri's POV

Three days.

She's barely eaten since I brought her here. I should have stopped noticing.

I haven't.

The file arrives with Sergei at eight in the morning. He sets it on my desk without a word. He knows better than to ask why I want it. He knows better than to say anything at all.

I open it.

Anya Moreau. Twenty-one. Both parents deceased — car accident, fourteen years ago. Grandmother deceased. No siblings. NYU nursing program, third year. Part-time at a café on Delancey. No criminal record. No debts.

Clean. Almost too clean.

I read through the accident report. Three pages. Wet road. Blind curve. Single vehicle. No other cars involved. Both occupants pronounced dead at the scene. The daughter, age seven, was not in the vehicle. She was at a neighbor's house.

Standard. Tragic. Unremarkable.

Then I reach the second page.

There's a flag in the corner. Small. Easy to miss. A notation added years after the fact.

Case reviewed at request of outside agency. No further action.

I read it again.

Outside agency.

Accident reports don't get reviewed by outside agencies. Not unless someone with enough pull asks them to. Someone who wanted to know what happened that night and didn't want anyone else to know they were asking.

I close the file.

For three days, I've been telling myself she's nobody. A random girl in the wrong place at the wrong time. A loose end I haven't decided what to do with yet.

She's not random.

Someone reviewed her parents' death. Someone powerful enough to reopen a closed file and close it again without leaving a trail.

I stand up. I take the file with me.

I stop in the hallway.

She's been in the same clothes for three days. The same jeans. The same sweater. She hasn't asked for anything — not a shower, not a change of clothes, not a single thing for herself. She's been waiting for me to decide what she's allowed to have.

I pull out my phone. I text Sergei.

Clothes. Something simple. Her size. Have them left at her door. And unlock the shower in her bathroom.

Then I walk to her room.

She's sitting on the bed when I enter. Her hair is still damp. The clothes are different — plain black pants, a soft gray shirt, both a little loose on her. She must have showered while I was in the study. She must have found what Sergei left.

She looks up when I close the door. She doesn't speak. She just watches me.

I sit down in the chair by the window. I put the file on the table between us — face down.

"The rules haven't changed," I say.

"I figured."

"You're not going to leave. You're not going to contact anyone. You're not going to step outside this room unless I say so."

She doesn't flinch. She doesn't argue. She just tilts her head, slow, like she's studying something small and interesting.

"Can I call my school?"

"No."

"My professor will notice I'm missing. I have clinicals on Thursday."

"Then let him notice."

She holds my gaze for a long moment. I expect her to look away. She doesn't.

"Okay," she says.

That's it. No fight. No tears. No bargaining. She says okay and leans back against the headboard, and I find myself irritated in a way I can't explain.

"Just like that?"

"You said no." She shrugs. "You're the one with the gun."

"I don't have a gun."

"You're the one who had the gun. Same thing."

I study her. Three days ago she was shaking so hard she could barely stand. Now she's making jokes.

"You're different than you were," I say.

"So are you."

I don't respond.

"You haven't killed me yet," she says. "That means something. You're not sure what you're doing. That means something too."

I lean forward. My voice drops. "You think you know me?"

"No." She meets my eyes without blinking. "I think I know what it looks like when someone doesn't know what to do with themselves."

Silence.

I stand up. I walk to the window. I look out at the city and I don't see any of it.

"Tell me about your parents," I say.

The silence behind me changes. I can feel it. Something small and sharp has entered the room.

"Why?"

"Because I asked."

She doesn't answer for a long moment. When she does, her voice is careful. Measured. Like she's counting the words.

"I was seven. It was raining. They were driving home from a dinner. The car went off the road."

"Were you with them?"

"No. I was at a neighbor's house."

I turn. She's watching me. Her hands are folded in her lap. Her face is blank — but it's a practiced blank. A blank she's worn for years.

"Do you remember that night?"

"I remember being told." She pauses. "I don't remember them. I was too young. I remember the neighbor. I remember her kitchen. I remember the phone call."

"Do you remember anyone coming to the house afterward? Asking questions?"

Her eyes narrow. Just slightly. Just enough.

"What kind of questions?"

"Anything."

She's quiet. Then: "Why are you asking me this?"

I don't answer.

She stands up. Slowly. Like she's figuring something out, and the figuring is happening in real time.

"You found something," she says. "In that file."

"It's nothing."

"It's not nothing. You came in here and asked me about my parents. You've never asked me anything except my name." She takes a step toward me. "What did you find?"

"Anya—"

"What did you find?"

Her voice cracks on the last word. Something behind her eyes has come loose. Not fear. Something older than fear. Something that's been buried for fourteen years and just heard a sound above it.

I look at her.

And for a moment — just a moment — I don't know what to do with what I'm seeing.

"You should get some rest," I say.

I pick up the file. I walk to the door. I close it behind me.

I don't look back.

---

Sergei is in the study when I return. Standing by the desk. Waiting.

"I need you to find out who requested the review on that file," I say. "Who opened it. Who closed it. Everyone in between."

He doesn't move.

"Something you want to tell me?"

"No." A pause. Too long. "Not yet."

"Sergei."

He looks at me. There's something in his face I haven't seen before. Something careful.

"The report says there were no other vehicles," he says.

"I read it."

"But someone requested surveillance footage from that night. Six cameras along that stretch of road."

I go still.

"And?"

"And the footage was removed," he says. "From the archive. Years ago. Before the review was even opened."

The room is quiet. I can hear the clock on the desk ticking.

Someone removed the footage.

Before the review.

Which means the review wasn't the first thing. The review was the second thing. The first thing was the erasure.

"There's more," Sergei says.

"Go on."

"That review I was going to look into? I don't need to look into it."

"Why not?"

"Because the request came from inside."

I stare at him.

"Inside what?"

"Us," he says. "The request came from someone in the organization. Fourteen years ago."

I don't say anything.

I stand there. In the middle of my study. In the middle of my house. In the middle of my own life.

Someone in my world reviewed her parents' death. And then someone in my world removed the footage that would have shown what really happened that night.

I look down at the file in my hand.

For three days, I've been asking myself why I kept her.

I'm not sure anymore that I did.

I think she was brought to me.