The call connects.
“Target just left the estate.” Static crackles. “Black Audi, headed east. Two passengers—Roman Volkov and his wife.”
Eleanor checks her watch. 6:47 AM Moscow time.
A headache blooms behind her left eye—the familiar pressure of too many hours and not enough answers.
“Where?”
“Warehouse district. Industrial sector seven.”
The same sector where three girls disappeared last month. Where the trafficking operation runs its western hub. Where men like Roman Volkov do things that never make it into court records because the witnesses don’t survive long enough to testify.
“Follow them,” Eleanor says. “Don’t engage. Just watch.”
She ends the call and stares at the vial.
ROMAN — Volkovskaya Mansion Study, 23:34
The violin is in pieces on the floor before I even realize I threw it.
Three hundred years old, my mother’s Stradivarius, the one thing I had left of her, and I just put it through the wall because Vadim smiled at Yuri during that toast.
I grab the scotch bottle and drink straight from it, the burn sliding down my throat while I stare at the wreckage and tell myself it doesn’t matter because nothing is irreplaceable. Vadim taught me that’s what I’ve been telling myself since I was twelve years old, and learned that sentiment is just another weakness people use against you.
I take another long pull, and my hand is shaking, actually shaking. I haven’t felt that since I was hiding in the dark while my family died above me. Twenty years of control and discipline and never letting anyone get close enough to matter, and one woman has reduced me to this—standing in the wreckage of my mother’s violin, drinking myself stupid, calculating how many bodies I’d stack to keep her safe.
The number keeps climbing, and I don’t even care.
Glass crunches behind me, and I know who it is before I turn.
“Get out.”
“That violin was three hundred years old.” Her voice cuts through the scotch haze, and something in my chest loosens at the sound, which pisses me off even more because I don’t want to feel relief that she’s here; I want to feel nothing at all.
“I’ll buy another one.”
“With what money?” She walks further into the study, and wood crunches under her heels. “Vadim’s or yours? Do you even know the difference anymore?”
I turn around.
She’s still wearing the grey silk dress from the banquet, her hair falling out of the braid Galina spent an hour creating, mascara smudged under eyes that haven’t slept since she watched me execute Alexei thirty-six hours ago.
She did it. She created what I needed. She looks wrecked and furious and so fucking beautiful it makes my chest hurt in a way I don’t know how to handle.
“You need to leave before I do something we can’t take back.”
“Like torture someone?” Her chin lifts, and her throat works when she swallows. “Like execute a man while I watch? You’re going to have to be more specific about which line we’re not crossing tonight, Roman.”
“Like tell you what’s actually happening with theantidoteyou created.”
The words come out before I can stop them, and I blame the scotch, blame the rage, blame whatever part of me apparently wants to watch her face when she realizes what she’s done.
“Like explain exactly what Vadim is doing with your brilliant research while you sleep in my bed thinking you’re saving lives.”
She goes still.
“They’re not going to hospitals.” Her voice has gone quiet and flat. “What are they—”
