Matvei is standing right in the middle of the entryway, his shirt half-buttoned, his jaw clenched tight. His blue eyes find mine the moment the doors part. Like he’s been standing there the whole six weeks, waiting for me to come back.
His voice is quiet but it cuts right through the noise of the hallway.
The paramedics stop pushing. The gurney jolts a little. One of them, the tall guy with the shaved head, looks between me and Matvei.
“Sir, you need to step back,” he says.
Matvei doesn’t move. His eyes are locked on mine. “Cassandra,” he says again.
“Ma’am.” The other paramedic, a woman with a blonde ponytail, bends down closer to me. “Do you know this man?”
I squint up at Matvei.
He looks like he did that first night. The black stubble. The sharp jaw. The shirt half-buttoned so I
