Minutes pass like hours. The weight of my silence presses down on them. Some shift, some clear their throats, some stare at the table rather than risk my eyes. Vivienne writes something in her notebook, quick, neat strokes of her pen. When she looks up, her gaze brushes mine for an instant.
Too calm.
I study her longer than I mean to. She doesn’t look away. There is something in her expression. Serenity, maybe, or something like it. Either way, it unsettles me.
Finally, I lean forward, my voice low, deliberate. “Twelve men are dead. Two trucks, three SUVs, gone. Crates gone. This wasn’t chaos. This wasn’t bad luck. Someone knew our schedule. Someone handed it to them.”
No one speaks.
The silence stretches, heavier than any confession.
I let my gaze sweep the table, resting briefly on each man, weighing the flickers of expression. Dimitri’s jaw tightens. Pavel scratches his beard. Maksim leans back, his smirk absent tonight. Vivienne keeps her head inclined, pen ready, eyes focused but unreadable.
“Someone gave them our schedule,” I repeat, louder this time, the words falling sharp against the silence.
Again, no answer.
“Not a guess. Not a theory. A fact.”
The men shift uncomfortably. Still, no one speaks.
I sit back, folding my hands together. “Until I know who, every conversation is suspect. Every phone, every file, every movement will be monitored. Assume nothing. Trust no one.” My gaze lands on Dimitri. “Surveillance. Internal and external. Tonight.”
“You got it,” he says immediately.
The others nod, murmur assent, some more eager than others. They know better than to protest.
I close the meeting with nothing more. No promises, no reassurances. Just silence.
One by one, they file out. Vivienne lingers, closing her notebook, tucking it into her bag. She rises smoothly, adjusting the line of her jacket. As she moves toward the door, her eyes catch mine again. Calm, steady, unflinching. She nods once—polite, professional—then disappears into the hall.
The chamber empties. Only Dimitri remains. He watches me carefully, his hand resting on the back of a chair.
“You think it’s one of them,” he says quietly.
“I know it’s one of them.”
“Then why not say more?”
“Because names without proof are weakness.” I lean back in the chair, exhaling slow. “I’ll know soon enough.”
He nods once, then leaves me alone.
The room is too big, too still. The fire crackles in the grate, shadows moving across the carved walls. I pour myself a drink but don’t touch it. My thoughts circle, tightening like a noose.
“Someone gave them our schedule.”
The words repeat in my head, echoing off the silence. Each time sharper, each time heavier.
The list in my mind is growing short.
Maksim, reckless, resentful. Pavel, cautious but ambitious. Sergei, too loyal for his own good—or perhaps only pretending. Even Dimitri, blood brother or not, cannot be immune to suspicion.
Then there’s her.
Vivienne Wilder is calm when she should be shaken. Silent when silence is dangerous. Eyes that hold mine longer than anyone else dares. She shouldn’t even be in this room, yet she is. She knows more than most of them now. I’ve let her.
I replay her movements over the last few weeks: the way she dismantled Sergei’s trial, the way she handled the bait file I slipped across the table, the way she stood still in the study when I pulled the trigger. Calm, always calm.
