Chapter Eighteen: Ghosts Don’t Knock
She hadn’t spoken since handing him the envelope.
He hadn’t looked at her since reading it.
The silence was unbearable. Not because it was cold. Because it was familiar. Like the quiet between them in the early days, when everything he offered her was control dressed as care.
Now it was retreat.
A fracture he didn’t know how to seal.
Lena stood in the center of the room, bare-legged, the sunlight painting gold across her shoulders.
“You’re not going to tell me?” she asked finally.
Nikolai sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees, the note dangling between his fingers like an unanswered question.
“I don’t know who left it.”
“But you know what it means.”
He didn’t deny it.
Lena’s throat tightened.
“Then say it.”
He looked up.
Eye
