Then he's moving toward me, cupping my face in his blood-stained hands, forcing me to look at him. His grey eyes are intense, searching mine for cracks.
"Are you okay?"
I laugh, sharp and brittle. "My uncle tried to have me killed in the middle of a charity luncheon while we were eating stupid flower salad." Hysteria bubbles up my throat. "I'm fantastic."
"Isabelle—"
"He killed my father." The words rip out of me, and suddenly I'm shaking. Everything I've been holding together since that phone call on the terrace, since Dad's casket, since this nightmarebegan, it all breaks open. "Matthew killed him. That's what he was going to say. The boat wasn't an accident."
Sergei pulls me against his chest, strong arms wrapping around me, and I bury my face in his shoulder. He smells like violence and safety. His heart beats steady and sure beneath my ear.
"I'll handle it," he murmurs into my hair. "I'll find proof. I'll make him pay."
"How?" I pull back, looking up at him. Blood spatters his jaw, his neck, and I should be repulsed. Instead, I reach up, wiping it away with my thumb. "He's family. He's protected. He has lawyers and money and?—"
"He has nothing I'm afraid of." Sergei catches my wrist, pressing a kiss to my palm. "You're my wife. He tried to kill you. There are rules about that in my world."
"What rules?"
His smile is cold, predatory. "Blood for blood,kotyonok. Your uncle just signed his own death warrant."
14
Izzy
"Tellme you're not doing what I think you're doing."
Wesley Cahill's voice crackles through my phone as I spread financial documents across Sergei's dining table. It's been four days since The Plaza, four days of barely sleeping while my husband makes bodies disappear, and I dive into Uncle Matthew's dirty money.
"I'm looking at publicly available records," I lie. The screen in front of me shows offshore accounts that definitely aren't public. "Perfectly legal."
"Bullshit. I can hear you clicking through firewalls." He sighs, heavy and resigned. "At least tell me you're using a VPN."
"Three of them." I zoom in on a transaction flagged in red. Two million dollars moving from one of Matthew's shell companies to an account in the Caymans. Same week Dad died. "Wesley, look at the date on this transfer."
Silence stretches. Then, "Christ. That's five days before the explosion."
Cold spreads through my chest. "Payment for services rendered?"
"Or payment in advance." His keyboard clicks in the background. "I'm sending you a list of names connected to that Cayman account. Cross-reference them with known fixers."
The email arrives thirty seconds later. I scan the list and my vision narrows when I recognize one name: Ivan Olegov, Bratva enforcer, specializing in making deaths look accidental. Boats, cars, falls from high places.
Uncle Matthew hired a hitman to kill my father.
"I need eyes on him," I tell Wesley. "Matthew. Twenty-four-seven surveillance. Where he goes, who he meets, everything."
"You sure about this? If he catches you digging?—"
"He already tried to kill me once. Maybe twice." The memories of the attacks in the park and charity luncheon play on repeat behind my eyelids. "I'm done being scared."
"Alright. I'll have someone on him by tonight. But Izzy?" His voice drops. "Watch your back. Men like Ashford don't go down easy."
I hang up and stare at the spreadsheet, tracing money that funded my father's murder. Rage burns through my chest, hot and consuming. Matthew sat at the funeral with his fake condolences, touched my arm with hands stained in Dad's blood, and I didn't see it.
The front door opens. Sergei walks in carrying takeout bags, his eyes immediately finding me at the table. He takes in my expression, the scattered documents, the white knuckled grip on the lighter.
"What did you find?" He sets down the food and moves behind me, hands settling on my shoulders.
