Somewhere between waking and sleeping, Vanya’s voice drifted through the curtain. Small. Soft. Wonder-filled.
“Mom?”
I opened my eyes. “I’m here, baby.”
There was a rustle. The faint shuffle of feet.
“I think...” he said quietly, “I think the fish like me.”
Despite everything—despite the day, the chaos, the hurricane that was Dmitri—I smiled.
“Sleep, Vanya.”
The curtain whispered open. Marble clicked beneath his little feet. The mattress dipped under his weight as he climbed in beside me without a word.
He burrowed under the covers and pressed his cold feet between my calves, just like he’d done since he was two. His curls smelled like lake water and shampoo. His breath puffed warm against my chest.
I wrapped my arm around him, pulling him close, grounding myself in the one thing in this entire poisoned world that was wholly mine.
Chapter 5
DMITRI VOLKOV
Isat in the dark like a man chained inside his own mausoleum.
The surveillance room was silent except for the low hum of machines—twenty-seven monitors arranged in a crescent, glowing an eerie blue across my face. Each screen was a window into a life I had lost and a life I was now stealing piece by piece.
The largest monitor was fixed on her.
Pen.
Penelope.
Whoever the hell she truly was.
She slept curled on her side, one arm draped over the small, warm body tucked against her. Vanya was pressed into her chest, his tiny hand still fisted in the fabric of her shirt, as if even in sleep he feared she might disappear.
Moonlight spilled through the panoramic windows, draping her in silver, tracing the lean lines of her body like a sculptor’s careful hand. Even in rest, she seemed poised between vigilance and surrender, caught in the fragile balance of a night that offered no real safety.
She was thinner than before.
Not the softness I used to worship—round hips, warm curves, thighs I used to grip until she’d gasp my name—but a new, honed edge. The angles of her cheekbones were sharper. Her body carried tension like a wire pulled too tight.
She looked like Penelope forged in fire.
And fire had changed her into something lethal.
I had been watching her for three hours straight.
I watched her in the shower—camera angled respectfully away from the glass because even I wasn’t depraved enough to cross that line. But I saw the steam rising, her silhouette pressed against the far wall, her shoulders shaking while she tried to cry quietly enough not to wake the boy.
I watched her step out with trembling hands, pull on the robe, and stare at her own reflection for a full minute like she was memorizing a stranger’s face.
I watched her crawl into bed with wet hair and eyes full of ghosts.
Every second was a slow crucifixion.
Five years ago, I had held my wife while she bled out in my arms, her white dress soaking red as she smiled weakly and whispered “Mitya” the way she did when she was fifteen and stupid and thought love made us immortal.
