I force the thought down, finally turning the key. The engine rumbles to life, loud against the quiet cemetery. Gravel crunches under the tires as I pull away, leaving the photo and rose behind, small offerings swallowed by the cold.
The road stretches ahead, leading back toward the city, back toward the wolves watching me. My pulse steadies as the miles fall away.
My mask slides back into place, the one I wear in court, the one I wear in front of the men who destroyed him. The one that hides how close I am to breaking.
The tremor in my hands lingers long after the cemetery is gone.
By the time I pull into the underground garage beneath my building, the daylight has shifted into something sharper, brighter. It stings my eyes when I step out, the echo of my boots ricocheting off concrete. My pulse hasn’t slowed since I left the cemetery. Every sound feels sharper too—the whir of a ventilation fan, the faint rumble of a car somewhere above, the metallic slam of the elevator doors.
When I reach my apartment, the unease hasn’t loosened. My keys rattle louder than they should in the lock, my throat tightening as the door swings open. The silence inside is too clean. It waits. I brace for movement, for a shadow where one shouldn’t be.
Nothing. Empty.
Still, I sweep the place like I always do, habit carved deep into muscle memory: bathroom first, then bedroom, then closets, finally the balcony. All clear. My nerves refuse to unclench.
I strip off my coat and move to the shower. The water is scalding, but I need it that way. It sears the cold cemetery air off my skin, washing away the dirt under my nails. I stand beneath the spray longer than necessary, forehead pressed against tile, steam clouding the glass.
When I emerge, the mirror shows me a stranger: damp hair clinging to my shoulders, eyes too dark, lips pressed thin. I dress quickly, pulling on soft sweats and a loose T-shirt, clothing that feels like armor in its own right.
At my desk, I wake the laptop. The blue glow fills the room, screen splitting into folders stacked with names, dates, photos. My father’s ghost stares at me from the header of one file, Alexei Sharov’s gray eyes from another.
I begin sorting—cross-checking associates, cleaning dead ends, flagging possible leverage points. Weeks of intel, collated into neat little packages that one day might bring an empire to its knees.
A knock on the door cracks through the silence.
I freeze.
Every nerve in my body spikes at once. The files vanish from the screen in seconds, laptop snapped shut and shoved beneath a stack of legal briefs. I clear the desk entirely, sweeping the coffee mug into the sink, straightening the stack of papers until they look untouched.
The knock comes again, lighter this time.
I force my expression smooth before I unlatch the door.
Annie stands there.
For a second, my mind blanks. She’s the last person I expected, her auburn hair loose around her shoulders, a paper bag dangling from one hand and a bottle of wine from the other.Her smile is warm, bright, the kind that used to anchor me before I lost myself in shadows.
“Surprise,” she says, grinning. “I figured you’d forget to eat, so I brought reinforcements.”
It takes me a beat to find my voice. “Annie.”
Her smile falters just slightly. “What, no hug?”
I step forward automatically, letting her wrap me in her arms. She smells like lavender and takeout spice, so familiar it almost knocks me off my feet. I press a smile into place before pulling back. “Come in.”
She kicks off her shoes at the door and breezes inside like she always used to. She doesn’t know—can’t know—what my life looks like now. To her, I’m still the law school friend who pulled too many all-nighters and drank too much bad coffee. Not the woman who kneels in graveyards and trades smiles with killers.
I set the table while she unpacks the food. It’s Thai, my favorite, though I can’t imagine eating right now. She pours two glasses of wine, sliding one toward me as if nothing between us has changed.
“So,” she says, digging into her noodles. “How’s work? Still terrifying judges into submission?”
I laugh lightly, though it sounds hollow in my ears. “Something like that.”
She launches into stories about her job, her roommate, the guy she’s been seeing. I nod, sip wine, offer small smiles. The cadence is easy, the way it always was, but I can’t follow it fully. My mind keeps slipping behind locked doors, back to the graveyard, my father’s name carved into stone. Then further still, to the darkened club where Russian murmurs wrapped around me, where Alexei’s eyes studied me like a problem he intended to solve.
I stab at my food without tasting it, hiding the tension in my shoulders with practiced gestures. Annie doesn’t notice, or if she does, she lets it slide.
For a moment, her laughter fills the apartment, rich and familiar, and I almost let myself fall into it. Almost let myself believe I can be that girl again, the one who had friends, who didn’t carry blood debts in her chest.
