"Try to rest," I murmur against her hair. "Tomorrow, we find out for certain. Then we move."
"And if it's confirmed? If he really?—"
"Then we burn him, kotyonok. Burn him until there's nothing left but ash and regret."
She's quiet for a long moment. Then, so soft I almost miss it:
"Good."
The lighter gleams in the darkness.
And I hold my wife and think about all the ways I'm going to make Matthew Ashford die.
19
Izzy
Sleep doesn't comefor the guilty.
At least that's what I tell myself at 4 a.m., staring at the ceiling while Sergei's arm weighs heavily across my waist, and the events of yesterday replay on loop behind my eyelids. Mila vomiting blood. The hospital. Elena's hand flying toward my face. The look in my stepdaughter's eyes when she chose me over her mother.
And Wesley's call.
The markers don't match standard food contaminants. They're testing for specific toxins.
I slip out of bed carefully, leaving Sergei's warmth for the cold reality of hardwood floors. He stirs but doesn't wake—even The Wolf needs sleep sometimes, though he'd never admit it.
The kitchen is dark, except for the glow of the coffee maker's clock. 4:17 a.m. Too early for anything except bad decisions and worse thoughts.
I make coffee anyway. The ritual of it helps—measuring grounds, filling the reservoir, pressing the button that starts the machine humming. Normal actions. Domestic actions. The kind of thing a regular stepmother does in her regular kitchen before her regular day.
Except nothing about this is regular.
Dad's lighter sits on the counter where I left it yesterday, before everything went to hell. I pick it up, thumb working the familiar mechanism.
Click snap
Click snap
The flame doesn't catch. I'm not trying to light it. Just need the motion. The connection to something solid when everything else feels like smoke.
My phone buzzes on the counter.
Wesley. 5:02 a.m..
Too early to be anything, except exactly what I've been dreading.
"Tell me," I say instead of hello.
"Thallium." His voice is hoarse, like he's been up all night, too. "The full toxicology came back twenty minutes ago. My contact at the hospital pulled it before the official notification went out."
The word sits in my chest like a stone. "Thallium."
"It's a heavy metal used in rat poison and some industrial applications. Colorless, odorless, tasteless in small amounts. Perfect for—" He stops. Clears his throat. "Perfect for poisoning someone without them knowing."
"Someone poisoned Mila."
Saying it out loud makes it real. Makes it a fact instead of a fear. My hand tightens on the lighter until the metal edges bite into my palm.
