In the bedroom, a lamp burns low. The sheets are turned down. There is a tray with food she can eat without thinking. Sergei’s handiwork, no doubt.
“Rest for now. Tonight, there will be no rest.”
She leans on the doorframe and studies my face. “What’s tonight?”
“We go out.”
“Where to?”
“Rope.”
She chirps an incredulous laugh. “We are being hunted, and you want to take me to your kink club?”
“It is the second most secure place I own. He will come out of hiding there. I know it.”
“Why wouldn’t he attack us here?”
“Without Fyodor to help him, he will not get in here. At Rope, there are plenty of people to bribe or blackmail for access. Also, he’s already tried here?—”
“And he doesn’t like to use the same tactic twice. Right.” Her smile dies, and she looks past me at the window. “I do not want the boys near any of this.”
“They will not be. They stay where they are.”
Her jaw works, but she says nothing.
“I will be here when you wake. Sleep now.”
She lies down in her clothes and pulls the blanket up. Her jaw scar is a pale thread in this light. She kisses my wrist and lets go. Her eyes close before I stand.
I hate leaving her here. I do it anyway. I also leave a code card on the nightstand. If she dials it, the inner doors lock, the cameras turn, and the gate freezes. That will keep him out.
I set in motion Marcus and Tanner’s replacements via text, and so far, so good. The new head of security, Aldo, waits by the landing with a clipboard. I miss the men who are gone and give no space to the ache. There’s no time now. Aldo has been with me for years, but under Tanner. He knows why he was promoted, and he doesn’t look scared.
“No gate for anyone but me. If I saywinter, you evacuate the rooms to the sublevel and you burn the driveway where it crosses the stream.”
He repeats it back without a single note wrong.
I change and leave by the side stairs. The car waits. My new driver, Peter, watches the clock and my face. He trained withMarcus, worked as his third shift relief. He knows better than to offer comfort.
“Route Five. The old Valivov place.”
The city is half-awake. We cross the river. Smoke from last week’s fire still stains the sky. Downtown is a vague blur on the way to the other side of the city. I used to love this drive.
Thirty-five years ago, there was less city to pass on my way to my meetup point with Olga. It was near her family property, but just far away enough that their guards never saw us meet up. She’d sneak out in the middle of the night, and I’d pick her up, and we’d steal away to some remote location. The woods. A park. Another town where we’d see a late-night movie and feel like a real couple for a few hours.
Sneaking her back in was always perilous. We never knew if her family knew she had been missing, so when she snuck back inside, she might have been caught. It never happened, though.
Well, there was one time.
The morning after a midnight escapade, her brother told her to be quieter when she snuck out, because he had to cover for her and say he’d fallen out of bed, because she had closed the window too loudly. She was terrified Leon would rat her out, but he swore he wouldn’t, and he never did. He told her that out of all their family’s enemies, I was the one he liked the most for her, because he knew I’d never hurt her.
If only that had been true…
The past clears away with the sighting of their grand driveway. Trees loom like sentries, and the ornate iron gate stands in front of the car. The buzzer sounds like a throat clearing.
I press it. “Roman Ekimov to see Leon Valivov.”
The lock whines before the massive gate opens. It is always a risk to visit another pakhan, particularly when unannounced. But this is a face-to-face discussion and not one I want Vitaly to catch wind of.
