The corner of his mouth twitched. “Da. Had bad survival instincts.”
Princess chose that exact moment to pull hard enough on her leash to make me stumble sideways. Guess we were leaving.
“I’d say it was delightful to meet you, but I’m kind of feeling insulted.” I threw him a fake smile over my shoulder while following the massive dog, acting as though I was leaving of my own accord.
“You not leaving.”
Princess, dragging me along in her wake, begged to differ.
“It seems our opinions are not aligned in this matter.”
I caught a glimpse of his exasperated expression before there was another big tug on the leash, actually forcingme to look ahead so I wouldn’t fall flat on my fucking face.
A mumbled curse in Russian, followed by quick footsteps, rang out behind me, and a hand grabbed my wrist and forced both me and an unamused Princess to stop.
“What do you—”
He pressed the paper into my hand and my fingers closed around it reflexively.
“Take. Follow instructions or I’ll be back.”
Ominous.
I raised my brows. “Is that a threat or…”
“Not threat. Just promise. Let’s not make him angry, da?”
Him?
“Who are you—”
But he had already turned around and was striding off in the opposite direction.
“Hold on! You can’t just disappear like this without an explanation!”
All he did was lift a hand lazily. “Follow instructions, Miss Romano.”
The stranger left me standing in the middle of the trail, dumbfounded. I chanced a quick glance at the paper in my hand, as though it might bite me.
“What the actual fuck?” I looked at Princess as though she might offer me some sort of explanation, but all I gotwas a reproachful look out of her slightly droopy eyes before she turned and jerked me along once more.
I stuffed the paper into my pocket, debating on whether it was wise to read it now. Curiosity killed the cat, did it not? Then again … cats had nine lives, so did it really matter?
My thoughts were spiraling.
What did the note say?
Who was it from?
Should I even read it?
Fucking hell, I wasn’t built for shit like this. If this were a horror movie, I’d already be dead.
Before I knew what I was doing, I had pulled the piece of paper out of my pocket and unfolded it, my eyes flying over the printed words.
Install Axiom on your phone. It’s not in the app store — use the link on axiom.chat through a private browser.
Open it. Don’t sync contacts. Don’t enable backups. Set a six-word passphrase you won’t reuse anywhere else.