Khan, feeling her distress, urges me to do something, and I know I have no choice. Getting up, I grab my keys from the small safe, and she glances over at me.
“Come on, I’ll take you to a payphone,” I tell her.
“We still have those?”
“Yeah, one at a train station, the last one left in the city, if the dinosaur of a thing still works.”
She watches me for a second, but I can tell she is wary of using one.
“Fine, we’ll purchase one of those burner phones or something. Just come on. Your anxiety is giving me fucking anxiety,” I tell her.
She rushes toward the door before stopping when she finds it locked. I grab her hand and unlock it. Her hand feels tiny in mine, also rather cold. I expect her to jerk away, but she doesn’t, and I know it’s only because she wants to speak to whoever is watching our sons.
Leading her downstairs, she looks around, and I remember she has never seen this place because she was unconscious when I brought her in. She stops a few times, looking at the pictures on the walls.
“It is a packhouse. Well, my father’s house,” I tell her.
“But you’re new to the city?” she questions.
“Yes, still his house. Well, now mine.”
Her confusion hits me, and she chews her lip before speaking. “Why did you kill him?”
“He killed my mother two weeks before he bought this place. We were supposed to move here, but then… It doesn’t matter. This place stayed vacant for years before I decided it was time to come here.”
“Is that why you were so close to your grandfather?” she asks.
I nod while leading her to my car. I open her door and nudge for her to get in. She climbs in, and I peer down at her.
“Do I need to lock the doors to walk to the other side?”
She shakes her head, and I shut the door, half-tempted to still lock it in case she tries to run. Ignoring the urge, I move to the driver’s side and climb in, letting out a breath when I notice her clipping her seatbelt in.
Just as I start the car, Eli mind links me. “Any chance you can narrow it down a bit? We supply seventy-one towns between here and Crestview City.”
I groan, clutching the steering wheel. “I’ll try to figure something out,” I tell him, cutting off the link and starting the car. The drive is silent, yet I can feel she wants to say something.
“What, Elena?” I ask her, catching her glancing at me again.
“I’m sorry about your grandfather,” she whispers so softly before averting her gaze out the window. “It’s why I named one after him like you wanted. I didn’t know Khan killed him because I ran.”
My grip tightens on the steering wheel. Khan presses forward with me, urging me to keep talking to her, but I don’t know what to say. I should apologize for my part, but it wouldn’t be enough after hearing what Luke had to say.
“Let her go home,” Khan tells me.
“She won’t come back.”
Khan sighs, also worried about her not returning yet hating to see her hurting. We buy a burner phone, and I listen in as she talks to some woman to check on the boys.
“I’ll hopefully be home tomorrow.”
My eyes darken because I am worried about her leaving and not returning. I could always follow her, but I know she is too smart to think I wouldn’t.
She keeps the phone call brief and hangs up the moment she is done. She then smashes the phone on the ground with such force it makes me jump, scaring the living daylights out of me.
“Jeez, Elena.”
“As if you wouldn’t try to track the call,” she growls, and I shrug. Nevertheless, she seems to have calmed some.