Chapter 63: Barbecue Night
Mika sat stiffly on the living room sofa, shoulders tense, legs drawn in a little too close like he was ready to spring up at any second, but didn’t dare to.
He could feel Charlotte’s eyes on him as she moved over to the TV and switched it on, and from the corner of his eye, he spotted Yelena in the kitchen, pretending to be busy checking the spice rack and ingredients, though she kept stealing glances at him every other second.
They were watching him.
Like he’d bolt at the first opportunity.
And honestly, given the atmosphere, even he felt like running, as the house had been modified, subtly, but unmistakably. Security settings had shifted the moment he entered, and he could feel it.
The exit pathways were no longer available in the same casual way they had been earlier. The locks, the walls, the sensors. Yelena had changed everything, carefully calibrating the place so that unless he blew a hole through the house or phased straight through the damn walls, there was no getting out.
And she knew he could.
That’s what made her constant glancing even more intense.
He wasn’t just a guest anymore, he was being kept.
His entire body slowly melted into the sofa from the pressure, arms folded across his chest, gaze flicking to the TV as Charlotte switched to the news.
And just as the channel loaded, the face of a familiar executive filled the screen, stern, polished, and insufferably smug behind his podium. The logo of the aerospace company behind the downed plane glared beside him.
The man began speaking in that overly formal, robotic tone executives use when they’re trying to spin something into gratitude.