All Chapters of Lovely Little Liar : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

NIKOLAI PovFLASHBACKI couldn't speak. It was not because I didn't have anything to say. I had too much — the problem was that everything trying to come out at once had jammed in my throat and left me standing there in the middle of my father's kitchen, completely useless, staring at a woman I had not thought about in eight months standing with her hand inside my father's jacket like she belonged there.Mira.I had spent three months convinced I was in love with her.She was staring at me. I was staring at her. My father was staring at both of us with a look that was cycling rapidly through confusion, recognition, and something harder that I recognized as the beginning of anger.Arianna had gone very still beside me."What," I said finally, "is the meaning of this."My father said nothing. He looked at Mira, then back at me, then at Arianna. Then his jaw set."Why," he said, his voice dropping to the tone he used when he wanted people to understand they were in trouble, "is Viktor's

Nico PovThe doctor finally packed up his bag after what felt like hours, though it couldn’t have been more than forty-five minutes. He scribbled a prescription for more antihistamines and some steroid drops, handed it to me, and gave a few last instructions about keeping the window shut and watching for any worsening symptoms.Noah was already dozing again, his small face less flushed now that the meds were kicking in. The kid looked peaceful for the first time since I’d stormed in here. I stood in the doorway watching him, arms crossed, feeling that strange pull in my chest I didn’t want to name. My son. The boy I hadn’t known existed until recently. The one Ariana had hidden from me for five fucking years.The nurse had already slipped out quietly. Stanley gave Arianna a nod and a few more reassurances before heading for the door. I followed him out, ready to leave this place behind. The cabin smelled like medicine, and I needed air. I needed distance. My jaw was tight, my hands it

ARIANNA POV"When can we go home?"Noah asked without preamble, looking at me with those dark eyes that had never learned to soften a question before delivering it. He was sitting up in bed with the blanket pooled around his waist and his hair still flattened from sleep, and he looked so much better than he had the night before that my chest ached with the relief of it.I stared at him.The honest answer was that I didn't know. The slightly less honest answer was soon. "Soon," I said.Noah considered this. "I miss Lucas," he said. Lucas was his best friend from the building, a boy two months older than him who Noah treated as both his closest ally and his primary competition, depending on the day."I know.""And I miss my books.""I'll get you more books."He looked at me steadily. "I miss our home, Mama."I crossed to the bed and sat beside him and pulled him into me, my arms around his small shoulders, my chin on top of his head. He let me, which meant he was still feeling fragile

ARIANNA POVThe shower helped, it gave my hands something to do, gave me somewhere to stand that was warm and enclosed and required nothing of me for ten minutes. I stood under the water and let my mind do what it had been doing all morning, which was to circle back to him.To the weight of his arm across me in the dark.He used to take me on trips.That was the memory that kept arriving uninvited. He would appear at my door with no warning, sometimes at midnight, and tell me to pack something light and not ask questions. And I would go, because I was twenty-one and in love and the questions I wasn't asking were the ones I already knew the answers to and didn't want yet.We went to Iceland once.We lay on the frozen ground at two in the morning wrapped in every layer we had brought and watched the lights move across the sky, and he said almost nothing the entire timeHe had held my hand. That was all, just that.I turned the shower off.Those were the days before I understood what we

ARIANNA POV"Ma'am." Petrov appeared at my side. "It's getting dark. We should get you back to the mansion while the team continues …""No.""Ms. Costa ..""I said no." I kept walking. "I'm not going anywhere without my son."He didn't argue further. I think something in my voice made the argument unnecessary. I had stopped sounding like a woman who could be stopped and started sounding like something else — the stripped-down version of a person, the one underneath all the composure, that only came out when the thing it was most afraid of was actually happening.The light was going.The sky at the edge of the tree line was shifting from grey to something darker, evening was arriving, while my son was somewhere in it. The flashlights came out. Three of them at first, then five as more men arrived from wherever Petrov had called them in from, their beams cutting pale lines through the undergrowth."Noah!"My voice had gone rough. I had been calling his name for almost two hours and my