“You bought time, not safety. He could still kill her himself. Putting her on the list was the easiest way to snuff her out.”
I nod. He’s right. Aleksander may not be able to kill Teresa with the ease of putting her on the list, but he can still make it happen if he wants.
We exit into the lobby, ignore the security men pretending not to stare, and slip back into the Rolls parked at the curb. Inside, I light a Sobranie Black—the second one in two nights—an indulgence I usually reserve for the hour before an execution. Smoke coils toward the suede roof while Dmitri eases into Midtown traffic.
I replay Teresa’s soft laugh from earlier, the way she mumbled in her sleep and curled against me, trusting a monster to keep her warm. My thumb finds the Angeloff crest on my cufflink, solid as a trigger beneath the silk.
“Stay alive, little one,” I whisper in Russian. “The rest, I will handle.”
The Rolls merges onto Fifth Avenue. Holiday lights streak red and gold across the windows, glittering over a city preparing for celebration.
Beneath the cheer, the promise of war settles quietly into place, sharp as icicles ready to fall.
CHAPTER 12
TERESA
The elevator doors part and I step onto the executive floor, pulse already racing.
Angeloff soldiers drift through the corridor dressed in black suits, silver ties, and identical lapel pins that glint like blades. They aren’t ordinary executives, no matter how polished their pocket squares. They’re Angels of Death, Vlad’s personal hitters.
They watch me with shuttered eyes as I deliver typed directives, each memo a silent bullet slipped into the chamber of their next assignment.
I clutch the leather folio to my chest tightly. One wrong breath, one misstep, and any one of them might decide to turn the muzzle on me.
After all, my name is still on the List.
First stop, conference room Delta. I rap twice, then crack the door. Six men sit around the table, black-clad shoulders squared like chess pieces. The nearest, Grigori, whose résumé readsfive languages, forty confirmed kills, lifts cold gray eyes to mine.
I slide the memo onto the polished wood and murmur the words, “From Mr.?Angeloff,” retreating cautiously as though from a predator’s cage.
The hallway seems to narrow with every step. Recessed lighting overhead paints thin rectangles and each time I cross the boundary between them, a flicker of vertigo hits, as if I’m stepping over tripwires only I can see.
Next room. Three women this time, hair pulled back into tight buns at their necks, silver cufflinks biting into starched sleeves. They pause mid-discussion when I arrive, as if my presence contaminates classified air. As soon as I leave, their hushed conversation resumes.
Between deliveries, I catch my reflection in mirrored accent walls—eyes wide and feral.
Hold it together, Winslow.
The folio lightens as I shed memo after memo, but my anxiety grows. Somewhere in this hive of shadows, Vlad is the king spider who gave me an order to be at work and act natural. However, natural feels impossible when every angle suggests a rifle sight.
Turning a corner, I nearly collide with Dmitri. He places a steadying hand on my shoulder. Though the pressure is polite, I know that hand has snapped necks.
“Easy,” he murmurs. His eyes, glacier-blue, flick to the paper clutched in my hand. “Straight ahead, last door.”
“Thank you,” I manage, voice threadbare.
The last corridor is emptier, quieter, like it’s holding its breath waiting for me. My heels tap in sync with my pulse. Almostdone. The final memo, a single sheet bearing Vlad’s signature in precise, imposing script. Room Omega waits at the end, door cracked, interior lights dimmed.
I reach for the handle?—
A hand closes around my wrist.
I whip around, breath locked in my lungs. Vlad stands inches away, eyes darker than I’ve ever seen them. For a beat, I expect cold metal in my ribs.
“Come,” he says, voice soft but edged.
Panic jolts through me. I glance at the door to Room Omega—an escape I’m not sure is safer—then back at him. He doesn’t wait for consent. He steers me down an adjacent corridor. I nearly trip trying to keep up.
