Because I can’t have heard right, can I?
Leave. It echoes in my head, over and over again. He said leave.
He wants me to leave.
Somehow, I remember how to speak. “What?”
The heartbreak on my face must be plain to see, because Yulian quickly specifies, “Not forever. But until things calm down, itisn’t safe for you here. Or for Eli.”
Eli. Not just me, then. My son, too. My son, who’s just started to get used to his new home.
My son, who thinks of Yulian as his father.
I stare at him in disbelief. “You want me to… to take Eli away?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he slides two pieces of paper my way. “These are plane tickets to Paris. They’re not in your realname, of course. I’m having the passports made as we speak.”
“Yulian, where is this coming from?” I push away the tickets as if th
