I don’t blink. “You’ve been watching us.”
His smile fades for a moment before flipping to another folder. He slides it across the table. It’s labeled: Jones, A.
My face doesn’t move, but something behind my ribs does. He opens the folder and fans glossy photos across the table.
Astrid.
One of her stepping out of a cab. Another entering a building with tinted windows and no signage. In the next she’s exiting, eyes down, arms crossed protectively over her middle.
“That’s a women’s health clinic,” Spalding informs me.
I say nothing but my heart skips a beat. And he sees it.
He leans forward, eyes gleaming. “Looks to me like she’s got a few secrets of her own.” His words are deliberate. Slow. He’s not after confirmation. He’s after blood.
I school my expression, but the ground has shifted beneath me. The timeline fits. Paris. The night she came to me, the way she’d refused the wine. The quiet tiredness. The need.
But it’s not for certain.
Spalding taps a photo. “Is it yours?”
I look up at him, my voice quiet and cool. “Be careful what you say next.”
He grins. “You threatening a federal agent, Ivanov?”
I lean back, voice calm and cool. “No. I’m warning a fool.”
His grin widens. “We can pull her in. One subpoena, and she’s ours.”
He doesn’t see the danger in that statement, but I do.
And God help him if he ever tries.
I think about the possibility of Astrid being pregnant with my child. My God. Has it been that obvious?
No. Wait. This could all be bullshit.
I narrow my eyes at the photos. Too convenient. A woman’s health clinic? That could be anything. A checkup. A prescription refill. Hell, a flu shot. The images don’t prove a thing and Spalding knows it.
He’s playing me.
I force myself to breathe evenly, but he’s watching me like a hawk, waiting for the fracture to spread.
“She’s not safe with you,” he says. “Or any of the Ivanov men. The bodies, the money, the things that happen behind those gilded gates at your mansion… she doesn’t belong in that world.”
He thinks he’s striking a nerve. Maybe he is. But not in the way he wants to.
My jaw tightens. My nostrils flare. I lean back. Hands steepled. Mask restored.
“You’re grasping at threads,” I say coolly. “You want a confession? You’ll have to do better than this.”
He slaps the folder shut with more force than necessary. “You think this is a game? You think we won’t burn it all down?”
“You’ve been trying,” I murmur. “All these years, yet we’re still here.”
Spalding glares at me. The temperature in the room seems to drop.
The rest of the interview is just noise. Paperwork. Empty posturing. A bluff with no cards left in hand.
