The kitchen smelled of yogurt and warm bread, the way it always did at this hour. Tisha wiped Santiago's chin with the edge of his bib, and he grabbed her finger with a fist the size of a biscuit, giggling at nothing at all.

"More?" she asked, lifting the spoon.

He opened his mouth like a baby bird, and she fed him another bite of the Greek yogurt he'd decided he loved. His dark hair curled at the temples, still baby-soft, and his eyes—those gray eyes, the color of a winter sea—watched her with the total absorption only a toddler could manage.

Two years. She'd measured the time in his growth, in the length of his legs against her hip, in the weight of him asleep on her chest. Two years since she'd walked away from everything, and she'd almost stopped counting the days.

The window was open, letting in the evening air—salt and grilled fish from the taverna two streets down, the faint sweetness of jasmine from the neighbor's terrace. Somewhere below, a scooter sputtered past, and farther out, the distant thud of bass from the cliffside club began its nightly pulse. Tisha had grown used to the sound, the way it vibrated through the marble floor under her bare feet, a heartbeat that wasn't hers.

Santiago banged his spoon against the tray, and yogurt flecked his cheek.

"Santi," she said, catching his wrist. "No."

He looked at her, lower lip trembling, and she almost laughed. The same look Pete had given her once, when she'd told him no about something small—she couldn't even remember what. The same stubborn set to the jaw, the same refusal to accept the word.

She wiped his face and lifted him out of the highchair. He was getting heavy, solid in the way toddlers were, all round limbs and surprising strength. She pressed her nose to his hair and breathed in the smell of him—baby soap and warm skin and something indefinably his.

"You're a good boy," she murmured. "You're my good boy."

He patted her cheek with a yogurt-smeared hand, and she felt it land somewhere in her chest, that fierce ache of love she still wasn't used to.

The apartment was small—one bedroom, a kitchen that opened into the living area, a bathroom with a shower that dripped no matter how many times she tightened the faucet. But the walls were whitewashed, the windows faced the sea, and the rent was cheap enough that she could work part-time and still afford to feed them both. She'd painted the shutters blue herself, the same blue as the sky at noon, and hung a string of paper lanterns across the balcony that Santiago liked to watch sway in the wind.

She'd made this life. She'd built it with her own hands, in a country where no one knew her name, where no one had ever heard of Tisha Reyes or the man who'd claimed her. She was just the quiet American girl who did the graphics work at the cosmetics office, the one who kept to herself, the one with the beautiful son and no husband to speak of.

People asked, sometimes. The neighbor across the hall, the old Greek woman who pressed baklava into her hands and clucked over Santiago's thinness. The colleague who'd invited her for drinks, three times, before she'd finally said no. Tisha had learned to smile and change the subject, to let them draw their own conclusions. The father was out of the picture. She was a single mother. She'd come to Mykonos for a fresh start.

All of it true. None of it the whole truth.

Santiago squirmed in her arms, and she set him down on the floor, watching him toddle toward his basket of toys. He picked up a wooden boat she'd bought him from a vendor in the old town, examined it with the serious concentration of a much older child, and then threw it across the room.

"Santi."

He looked at her, delighted with himself, and she sighed.

"We're working on that," she said, retrieving the boat. "We're working on so many things."

The phone rang, and she startled—she always startled now, even after two years, even in a place where no one knew her. She glanced at the screen and felt the knot in her chest loosen.

"Inay," she said, answering.

Her mother's voice came through the speaker, tinny and warm, the accent familiar in a way that made her eyes sting. "Anak, you sound tired. Are you eating?"

"Yes, Inay. I'm eating."

"And the baby? Santiago is well?"

"He's perfect. He just threw his boat across the room."

Her mother laughed, the same laugh Tisha remembered from childhood, the one that said I know exactly what you're dealing with. "He has his father's temper."

Tisha's hand tightened on the phone. "He has a toddler's temper. That's all."

A pause. Her mother had never asked about Santiago's father, not once, and Tisha had never offered. The silence between them was a wall they'd both agreed to build, and neither of them knocked on it.

"When will you visit?" her mother asked, changing the subject. "It's been so long. Your cousins ask about you."

"Soon," Tisha said, the lie smooth as silk. "When I can afford the ticket."

"I can send you—"

"No, Inay. I'm fine. We're fine."

Another pause, longer this time. Tisha could picture her mother in the small house in Quezon City, the one with the corrugated roof and the jasmine bush by the door, the one Pete had threatened two years ago. She'd called her mother the day she'd landed in Manila, the day she'd walked off that plane with nothing but a duffel bag and a secret, and she'd told her—in a voice she'd practiced the whole flight—that she was coming home, that she was done with the modeling, that she wanted a quiet life.

Her mother hadn't asked why. She'd just opened her arms and held her, and Tisha had cried into her shoulder until there was nothing left.

"You take care of yourself, anak," her mother said now. "And you take care of my grandson."

"I will."

"I love you."

"I love you too, Inay."

She hung up and stood there for a moment, the phone still warm in her hand. Santiago had found the boat and was now chewing on its mast, his gray eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance.

His father's eyes. She saw them every day, and every day she pushed the thought away. Pete Bianchi was a ghost now, a memory she'd buried so deep she almost believed it wasn't real. She'd changed her name, changed her face—well, not her face, but her hair, shorter now, and she'd stopped wearing the bright colors she used to favor. She wore loose linen and sandals, the uniform of the island, and she'd let the sun freckle her shoulders until she looked like a different person.

She was a different person. That was the point.

She'd thought about him, at first. In the beginning, when Santiago was new, and she was exhausted and the nights were long and dark, she'd lain awake and wondered what Pete would do if he knew. If he'd come for her. If he'd try to take the baby. If he'd kill her for running, or kill her mother, or burn down the small life she was trying to build.

She'd thought about the way he'd written Mine on the back of her wedding photograph, the way he'd said it like a prayer and a threat and a promise all at once. She'd thought about the basement, the blood, Miguel's face as he begged her to help him—Miguel, who was dead now, whose body had been found in that house, whose blood was on her hands as surely as it was on Pete's.

She'd thought about all of it, and then she'd stopped. Because Santiago had looked at her with those gray eyes, and she'd realized that she couldn't afford to think about it anymore. She had to be his mother. She had to be the woman who fed him and bathed him and taught him that the world was safe, even if she knew it wasn't. She had to pretend, every day, that she wasn't afraid.

And after a while, the pretending got easier. After a while, she almost forgot.

Santiago gurgled, and she smiled, scooping him up. "Come on, little man. Bath time."

She carried him into the bathroom and ran the water, testing it with her elbow the way she'd learned from a parenting forum. He splashed and kicked and laughed, and she laughed with him, and for a few minutes she was just a mother and her son, and the world was small and warm and safe.

Afterward, she wrapped him in a towel and carried him to the bedroom, where she dressed him in pajamas printed with little boats. He was drowsy now, his eyelids heavy, and he leaned into her as she rocked him, his head tucked under her chin.

"Ma," he murmured, not quite asleep.

"I'm here, baby."

She laid him in his crib and stood over him, watching his chest rise and fall. He was so small. So fragile. She'd die for him—she knew that with a certainty that surprised her, even now. She'd do anything to keep him safe.

She'd already done everything. She'd run halfway around the world. She'd given up her name, her career, her country. She'd built a life out of nothing, in a place where no one could find them.

And it had worked. For two years, it had worked.

She turned off the lamp and left the door ajar, the way she always did, and walked back into the kitchen. The highchair was still covered in yogurt, and the dishes were stacked in the sink, and the phone was still on the counter where she'd left it.

She was rinsing a plate when her phone buzzed. A text message.

She dried her hands and picked it up. It was from Eleni, the receptionist at the cosmetics office, the only person there who'd made an effort to be friendly. Tisha had given her a ride home once, and they'd exchanged numbers, and now they texted occasionally—small talk, work gossip, the occasional invitation to a beach party Tisha always declined.

The message was three lines long, and Tisha read it without really seeing it.

Did you hear? The big investor is coming to the island.

Some American billionaire. He's buying the restaurant next to the office.

They're calling it a done deal.

Tisha smiled, or tried to. She typed a reply—An American? Here?—and hit send, not really caring about the answer. A billionaire buying a restaurant in Mykonos. It happened all the time. The island was full of them, rich men with boats and houses on the cliffs and no real purpose beyond the pursuit of pleasure.

She set the phone down and went back to the dishes.

It buzzed again.

I know, right? Apparently he's got a thing for Greek food. Or Greek women.

Tisha laughed despite herself. The phone buzzed again.

His name is Pierto Bianchi. Some Italian mob guy, I think. Anyway, they're all coming to the restaurant tomorrow night. Big meeting.

Tisha's hand stopped.

The plate slipped from her fingers and shattered on the tile floor.

She stood there, frozen, the sound of the shattering still ringing in her ears. The phone was in her hand, the screen glowing, the name burning into her retinas.

Pierto Bianchi.

Not Pete. Pierto. But it was him. It had to be him. The same name, the same surname, the same American money, the same Italian mob. It was him.

He was here.

He was coming to Mykonos.

He was coming to the restaurant next to her office, the one she walked past every morning on her way to work, the one where she'd bought Santiago a lemonade last week, the one that was a hundred meters from her apartment.

The spoon she'd been holding—the one she'd used to feed Santiago his yogurt—clattered to the floor, bouncing once before settling against the shard of the broken plate. The sound was the only thing in the room, sharp and final, like a door slamming shut.

Tisha couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. The walls of her small white apartment seemed to close in around her, the blue shutters suddenly too bright, the smell of grilled fish suddenly too strong. She looked at the phone in her hand, at Eleni's message, at the name that had just upended everything.

He was here.

He was here, and Santiago was asleep in the next room, and she had nowhere to run.

She pressed her hand to her stomach, the way she had two years ago, in that hotel room, when she'd first realized what was growing inside her. But there was no baby there now—Santiago was two years old, sleeping in his crib, his breath soft and even, his gray eyes closed.

His father's eyes.

His father, who was coming to Mykonos.

Tisha's knees buckled, and she caught herself on the counter, her knuckles white against the marble. The phone buzzed again in her hand, and she looked down at it, not seeing the words, not reading the message. All she could see was the name, repeating over and over like a heartbeat.

Pierto Bianchi.

He was here.

And she knew, with the same certainty she'd felt in that airport terminal two years ago, the same certainty she'd felt when she'd looked at the departure board and known she had to leave—she knew that he hadn't come to Mykonos for the food.

He'd come for her.