Fifteen minutes.
Turned out I only needed seven.
My grandmother's jewelry box was exactly where it had always been: behind the ceramic statue of the Virgin Mary my stepmother kept forgetting to dust. Mary got tossed gently onto the bed. God could watch from there. The box came with me down to the floor.
"Sorry, Nonna," I murmured, shoving gold and diamonds into a canvas tote. "I'll buy them back later. With interest. From the grave if I have to."
The velvet box from downstairs was already in my pocket. His grandmother's ring. He could add it to the list of things I owed him.
The safe was next.
My father had thought he was subtle, putting a religious painting in his office. A framed print of Saint Michael staring nobly into the distance. Behind it, of course, was the wall safe. Very original.
I slipped out of my room and padded down the hall. The house was noisier now. The Volkov men were still downstairs. I could feel Cillian in my bones like a storm cloud.
The office door was half open. I slipped inside, closed it quietly, and crossed to the painting. I lifted it off its hook and propped it against the desk. The safe keypad blinked at me.
My father was many things, but he was also predictable. I punched in Matteo's birthday.
The light went green. The lock clicked.
Inside, there were stacked envelopes of cash, a few folders, a handgun in a velvet‑lined box. I ignored the gun and went for the cash. The bag was getting heavy. Good. I shut the safe, hung Saint Michael back over the wall, and adjusted the frame so it was slightly crooked like it always was.
I walked back to my room like I belonged there. Like I wasn't carrying a bag of felony. At my door, I paused, listening. No one. I slipped inside, locked it behind me, and dropped the tote onto the bed.
The dress went next.
Buttons down the back were a nightmare. I managed to undo a few, then gave up and tugged until stitches popped. I grabbed my jeans, a black tank top, and a hoodie from the suitcase. I ran a brush through my hair, pulling the pins out until the bun collapsed and brown waves fell around my shoulders.
The girl in the mirror looked like me again.
I shoved the lipstick into my pocket along with the phone, charger, and a cheap prepaid SIM I had bought in another life. Tote bag over my shoulder, I cracked the window open.
My father had bars put on Matteo's window after he climbed out once. He never bothered with mine. He never thought I'd leave.
The drop was farther than I liked, but that was a problem for gravity, not me.
"One more bad decision," I told myself under my breath, and jumped.
***
Three months later…
I owned exactly three mugs, and two of them were chipped.
The one I was holding said World's Okayest Human in peeling blue letters.
"Evie, you're going to be late," my roommate, Lana, called from the bathroom, over the roar of the hairdryer.
"I'm not late," I yelled back. "I'm fashionably on time."
"You're in accounting," she said, stepping out of the bathroom in a towel, her hair a cloud of damp curls. "There is no fashionable on time. There's early, on time, and dead."
She had a point.
"Do you need a ride?" Lana dug through the laundry basket for something that could pass as pants. "I don't have class till ten, but I can drop you."
"It's a ten‑minute walk."
"Evie." She stopped, hands on hips. "This town has hills. Your backpack weighs more than I do. Let me be your Uber."
"Tempting, but if I don't suffer now, how will I earn my inevitable lower back problems?" I grinned.
She snorted and returned to her pants hunt. "Fine. Your funeral."
I slipped into my sneakers, checked that my keys, phone, and campus ID were in my bag, then opened the apartment door.
The sky was that pale blue that meant it was going to pretend to be warm later and then betray you with wind. Trees lined the street, leaves just coming in. A woman jogged past with a golden retriever; he looked at me like I might have treats.
"Sorry, buddy," I told him. "All I have is anxiety."
Campus was six blocks away. I walked fast, partly because I was late, partly because my body still believed walking slowly was an invitation to be shot at.
I liked it here.
Nobody knew "Ava Rossi." On paperwork, I was Evie Ross. Close enough I'd remember to answer, different enough not to ping anything if someone was casually checking admissions lists in another country.
The State University at Ridgemont was not prestigious. But they had a solid business program, and their accounting professors delighted in giving out soul‑crushing problem sets.
It felt like home in a way my father's house never had.
By the time I slipped into the back of Intermediate Financial Accounting, the professor was already fiddling with the projector. Half the room was scrolling on their phones; the other half was complaining about the homework in various creative ways.
"Evie!" A hand waved from the middle rows.
Great. Witnesses.
I made my way to the seat Elena was saving, stepping carefully past someone's open laptop and someone else's very large iced coffee. Elena was blonde, perpetually overcaffeinated, and had somehow managed to decide we were friends in week one.
"You're almost late," she whispered as I sat. "I was about to text you threatening emojis."
"Is there a punctuality bonus on this exam I don't know about?" I asked, pulling my notebook out.
"There's a participation grade, and your face is my emotional support face." She shoved a travel mug toward me. "Taste this coffee. I made it myself."
Against my better judgment, I took a sip. It was... sweet. Very sweet.
"This is illegal in several countries," I said. "In a good way."
She beamed. "I know. Hey, did you finish the problem with the consolidation entries? I swear they're designed by demons."
We fell into the familiar rhythm of class: professor droning, Elena whispering snarky commentary, pencils scratching. It was almost easy to forget there was a life where men signed my future away over whiskey.
Almost.
During a lull, I caught myself doodling in the margin: fifteen minutes, circled. I stared at it for a second, then scribbled over it until it was a solid black blob.
When class was over, Elena hooked her arm through mine.
"Coffee?" she asked. "The legal kind this time. I have a shift at noon, you might as well walk me over."
"Can't," I said. "I have my own shift. At the same coffee place."
She gasped dramatically. "Evie. Are you cheating on me with capitalism?"
"Look who's talking, Miss 'I Make Espresso For Tips.'"
She rolled her eyes. "Fine. We'll be wage slaves together."
The café was just off campus. It was the kind of place that catered to students: mismatched chairs, chalkboard menu, baristas with too many piercings. It smelled like coffee, baked goods, and student desperation.
I clocked in, tied the apron around my waist, and tugged my hair into a low ponytail. Frank, the manager, nodded at me from behind the pastry case.
Customers blurred into a stream: lattes, americanos, iced whatevers. My hands moved on autopilot, my brain half on tips and half on the way the light hit the dust motes in the air.
"Evie." A familiar face leaned on the counter. Jason, from econ. Friendly, harmless, always smelled like laundry detergent and optimism. "Hey. A few of us are hitting O'Malley's tonight. You coming?"
"I work till ten," I said, wiping a stray drip off the counter.
"You could come after," he suggested. "First drink on me."
I smiled, because he was sweet and didn't deserve my issues. "I'll think about it."
We both knew I wouldn't.
He left with his coffee, and I exhaled slowly.
Elena leaned on the counter next to me. "If you don't go out soon, you're going to become a legend. The ghost of Accounting."
"Spreadsheets are all the party I need," I said.
She snorted. "You say that now."
We fell into the lunch rush. Orders, milk, espresso, calling out names. It was good. It filled the space in my head that used to replay Cillian's voice.
You belong to me now.
No, I didn't.
By three, the line had thinned. A couple studied in the corner, laptops open. A professor read a book by the window.
I was wiping down the end of the bar when it happened.
It was nothing at first. Just the bell over the door and a shift in the air as someone stepped in.
Normal.
We got people in and out constantly.
But this time, my body noticed before my brain did. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. My shoulders went tight. My heart, which had settled into a reasonable thud, slammed hard enough that the rag paused in my hand.
I kept wiping.
It was just a customer.
Elena smiled toward the door. "Hi! What can I get you?"
The reply was too quiet for me to catch the words, but the sound of it… low, even, edged with something dangerous… wrapped around my spine. There was an accent in there. Not thick. Just enough.
My grip tightened on the cloth.
No.
No, no, no.
My eyes flicked to the espresso machine. Its chrome side threw back a warped reflection of the counter. Elena's ponytail. The stack of cups.
And, at the end of the bar, a tall figure in a dark suit.
This was a college café. People wore hoodies and jeans. The most formal we got was someone in a button‑down before a presentation. The suit was wrong there. The posture was wrong. The way he stood, weight balanced, like he could move in any direction without effort, was very wrong.
My pulse jumped higher. My mouth went dry.
I didn't see his face. I didn't need to.
My bones recognized him.
"Elena," I said, trying to sound like nothing in particular, "I'm going to grab more lids from the back."
"We have lids," she said, frowning.
"Not the right ones." I peeled off my apron and hung it on the hook. My hands were steady. That was nice. "Be right back."
I pushed through the swinging door into the back room. The exit sign glowed weakly over the rear door like a suggestion.
I could go back out there and pretend this was a coincidence. I could pour his coffee, ask what brought him to Ridgemont, and act like Evie Ross just happened to have Ava Rossi's face.
He'd see through it in two seconds.
I inhaled once, sharp and cold. My brain flipped through options. Fight, freeze, flight.
Going out there was freeze, then fight on his terms. Staying there until my shift ended was just... slow surrender.
Flight it was.
I crossed the room and pushed the back door open. It was stuck, as always. I threw my shoulder into it. It gave with a complaining groan.
The alley behind the café smelled like dumpsters and old coffee grounds. A delivery truck idled at the far end, the driver smoking and scrolling his phone. He didn't look up as I stepped out.
I tugged my hoodie up, shoved my hands into the front pocket, and walked.
Not ran.
Running draws attention. Running is what you do after someone shouts, not before.
My heart didn't get the memo. It hammered like it was trying to punch its way through my ribs.
I cut across the side street, past the laundromat, through the little park with the crooked bench. Every few yards, I checked glass: a parked car window, a shop door. No tall man in a dark suit behind me. No flash of green eyes.
Maybe it wasn't him, I thought. Maybe I'm traumatized enough to hallucinate men in suits now. That's healthy.
A distant part of me knew I was lying.
By the time I looped back toward my apartment the long way around, the sky had shifted toward evening. Lights flickered on in windows. Someone was cooking something with garlic. The building looked the same as it had that morning.
Normal.
I let myself in, locked the door, and leaned against it. The quiet hummed around me.
My hands were shaking.
I stared at them, flexed my fingers, forced them to still.
He had found me.