I should let her work in peace, turn off the feed and give her privacy, at least the illusion of it.
But I can't. The need to watch her is compulsive and overwhelming.
The front door sensor triggers, and I see a figure enter the main gallery on a different camera. My body goes rigid instantly, every instinct screaming danger.
The man is large, moving with a brutal focus that I recognize. He’s the kind of man who has one purpose in life: to hurt others at the behest of someone who doesn’t feel like doing it themselves.
And I have a feeling, a gut instinct honed from years of recognizing danger, that I know who sent him.
Terror floods through me, cold and sharp.
I knew Sergei might make a move. But I thought I had more time. I thought he'd approach me directly first, test my boundaries before going after her.
I was wrong.
The man is moving through the gallery, toward the back room. Toward Mara.
I’m up off of the couch before he makes it halfway across the gallery floor, grabbing my jacket and gun as I bolt for the door. I grab my phone as I rush down the stairs, texting Kazimir that I’ll likely need a cleanup crew at Mara’s gallery.
If I can get there in time. If I can stop him before he hurts her.
He’s not leaving there alive if I have anything to say about it.
I have a feeling Sergei sent this man there to grab her, so she can be used as leverage to get me out of New York, or to get me to stop whatever it is he thinks I’m doing here. The laughable thing is that my reasons for being here have nothing to do with him… until now.
If he hurts her, I’ll start a war before I let this slide.
The thought of what could happen to her makes my blood run cold as I drive toward the gallery. I've never felt fear like this. I've been shot at, stabbed, beaten, threatened by men who could actually kill me, and I've never felt this kind of visceral terror.But the thought of Mara hurt, of arriving too late, of finding her?—
I can't finish the thought.
Manhattan traffic is a nightmare, but I don't care. I weave between cars, run red lights, my hand on the horn, my foot heavy on the accelerator. Other drivers honk and swerve, and I ignore all of it, focused only on getting to her. My mind won't stop showing me images I don't want to see. Mara hurt. Mara bleeding. Mara's body broken on the gallery floor while that brutal man stands over her, waiting for me to arrive so he can deliver Sergei's message.
I've killed men for less than what he’s attempting right now. I've destroyed entire organizations for smaller insults. But none of that matters if I'm too late.
The fear is unfamiliar and overwhelming. I've spent my entire adult life in control, building walls around anything that could be used against me. But Mara has destroyed all of that. She's become the one thing I can't protect myself from, the one weakness I can't eliminate.
And now she's paying the price for my obsession.
I run another red light, nearly clipping a taxi. The driver leans on his horn, screaming something I don't hear. My phone rings. Kazimir.
"I'm five minutes out," I say before he can speak.
"Ilya, you need to think about this. If you go in there alone?—"
"I'm not leaving her with him."
"This is dangerous. You should wait for backup."
"No." The word comes out flat and hard. "If something happens to her because I waited?—"
I don't finish the sentence. I don't need to. Kazimir knows me well enough to understand what I'm not saying: if Mara dies because I was waited and didn’t take her with me that night that I showed myself to her, I'll never forgive myself.
"Be careful," Kazimir says finally, and hangs up. “I’ll be right behind you.”
The gallery appears ahead, its windows dark except for security lighting. I pull up to the curb, not bothering to park properly, and I'm out of the car before the engine stops, my gun already in my hand.
The front door is unlocked. I slip inside, my movements silent, years of training overriding the panic that wants to make me rush.
