The cap looks different than I remember. Newer. Like someone replaced it recently.
I unscrew it slowly, holding it up to the kitchen light.
A faint residue rings the inside of the cap. Barely visible. The kind of thing you'd never notice unless you knew to look.
Thallium is colorless. Odorless. Tasteless in small amounts.
Two weapons in a child's backpack. One to listen. One to kill.
And I refilled that bottle a dozen times without knowing.
He knew Mila's schedule. Knew when she'd be at school, what she'd eat, when she'd come to us. Knew exactly how to poison her, without anyone noticing until it was too late.
And he knew we'd figure it out eventually. That's what this is—a message wrapped in a message.I can reach your daughter. I can hear your secrets. I can destroy you whenever I want.
I want to scream. Want to throw this thing against the wall and watch it shatter. Want to burn this house down and rebuild it from ashes free of Matthew's contamination.
Instead, I slip the bug into my pocket.
Because if I destroy it, Matthew knows we found it. And right now, the only advantage we have is knowing something he doesn't know we know.
Footsteps on the stairs.
Sergei appears in the hallway, sleep-rumpled and alert in that way only predators manage. His eyes find me crouched on the floor with Mila's backpack, and something in his expression sharpens.
"Izzy?"
I hold up one finger. Then I grab a notepad from the kitchen drawer, scribbling fast:
House is bugged. Found one in Mila's backpack. Don't react. Don't speak. Matthew's listening.
I hold it up for him to read.
His face goes blank. That terrifying emptiness that means The Wolf is awake and calculating exactly how many pieces he's going to tear someone into.
He takes the notepad. Writes:
How long?
Weeks. Maybe months. Wesley just called—thallium poisoning confirmed. Matthew used the bugs to track her schedule, then poisoned her.
I watch him read. Watch the words land. Watch the moment he connects the surveillance to his daughter's blood in that hospital toilet.
His hand crushes the notepad into a crumpled ball.
I grab his wrist before he can move. Squeeze hard. Hold his gaze with everything I have.
Not yet, I mouth.We need to sweep first. Find all of them.
For three heartbeats, I'm not sure he'll listen. The violence radiating off him is almost visible, a heat shimmer of rage that makes the air feel thick. His jaw is granite. His eyes are murder.
Then he nods. Once. Controlled.
He disappears into his office and returns with a device that looks like something out of a spy movie—sleek black box with an antenna, various lights blinking in sequence. RF detector. Of course he has one.
We move through the house in silence. The kitchen yields nothing—I was wrong about the overhead lights. But the living room produces a hit behind the smoke detector. Sergei removes the device with surgical precision, showing me another bug identical to the one in Mila's backpack.
The master bedroom. Another smoke detector. Another bug.
