“You don’t understand what kind of trail you followed,” I say.
“Then explain it,” Clara snaps.
I hold her gaze. She’s shaking, but she hides it well. Her knuckles are white against the edge of the chair. She keeps her voice steady through sheer force.
Most people beg or bargain at this point. She pushes.
I could shout. I could threaten. I could remind her what happens to those who challenge me. Instead, something in her expression stops me.
I kneel.
Her breath catches, but she doesn’t lean away. I settle in front of her, eye level, eliminating the distance between us.
“You have no idea what kind of men you’ve provoked,” I say. My voice stays low. Even. “They don’t warn. They don’t negotiate. They take. They make people vanish. They don’t care who you are or why you wrote what you wrote.”
“Including you?” she fires back.
My jaw tightens. The question strikes deeper than she knows. For a moment, I consider answering honestly. I consider telling her that I stopped her kidnapping because the thought of anyone else touching her felt intolerable.
I say nothing.
The silence stretches. She watches me with that same mix of fear and defiance. I stand slowly, brushing the dust from my knee.
“We’ll talk again,” I say.
She opens her mouth to argue, but I’ve already stepped back. I walk to the door and lock it behind me.
Her voice doesn’t follow me this time, but the question she asked does.
“Including you?”
I close my hand into a fist as I walk down the hall.
***
The sun is lowering behind the trees when a knock comes at my door. It’s sharp, controlled—one of my men who knows better than to interrupt me without reason. I close the ledger on my desk and tell him to enter.
He steps inside with a tablet in hand. There’s tension in the way he holds his shoulders, a stiffness that tells me something is already wrong.
“Sir,” he says, “you should see this.”
He hands me the tablet. A security feed from outside the estate plays on loop. The footage is grainy at first—tree branches shifting, a sliver of the far fence line, the long stretch of shadows beyond. Then a figure moves across the screen. Not one of mine. Not a civilian.
Someone watching. Someone scouting. Someone bold enough to get close.
My jaw goes rigid as I replay the clip again, slower this time. The figure surveys the property, keeps low, then slips back into the trees. A single person, light on their feet.
A spy.
My men were supposed to spot anyone within half a mile of the grounds. The estate is remote, quiet, forgotten by most. The only people who know the land well enough to get near it are rivals who survived the last purge.
The tablet creaks under my grip.
“How long ago?” I ask.
“An hour.”
“Are they still nearby?”
