But machines don't sit outside closed doors, listening for the sound of breathing on the other side.
I push myself out of the chair and head for my office. There's work to be done.
***
The call with Carmine Benedetti is brief and deeply satisfying.
"Mr. Kashkin." His voice is oily, ingratiating—the voice of a man who knows he's in trouble and is desperately trying to charm his way out. "Thank you for returning my call. I know we haven't always seen eye to eye, but I think there's an opportunity here for mutual benefit—"
"You sold your daughter."
Silence. I let it stretch, let him feel the weight of those four words.
"It was a difficult decision," he says finally. "The debts, the pressure from the Morozovs—you have to understand, I had no choice."
"There's always a choice. You chose to put her on a stage and let strangers bid on her body."
"The auction was Sergei's idea. He wanted it done publicly, wanted to—" Carmine stops himself, perhaps realizing that blaming Sergei isn't going to help his case. "Look, what's done is done. The question now is what happens next."
"What happens next is none of your concern."
"She's my daughter."
"She was your daughter. Now she's under my protection. You gave up any claim to her when you signed her over to the Morozovs."
I hear him breathing on the other end of the line—shallow, rapid. Scared.
"The Morozovs are pressuring me," he says. "Sergei is furious. He's demanding to know where you've taken her, what your intentions are. If I don't give him something—"
"Then give him something."
"What?"
"Tell him whatever you want. Tell him she's in San Francisco. Tell him she's under heavy guard. Tell him I have no intention of giving her up." I let my voice drop to something cold and flat. "Tell him if he comes for her, I'll send him back to his father in pieces."
Carmine makes a strangled sound. "You can't—he'll kill me. If I deliver that message, he'll—"
"That sounds like your problem, not mine."
"Please." The word comes out broken, desperate. "I made a mistake. I know that now. But she's still my daughter—my blood. Surely there's some arrangement we can come to, some way to—"
"Let me be clear." I cut him off, my patience exhausted. "You are nothing to me. Your family is nothing to me. The only reason you're still breathing is because killing you would create complications I don't need right now. But that calculation could change."
"Kashkin—"
"If you contact me again, if you try to reach Bianca, if you so much as speak her name to anyone—I will consider it a hostile act. And I will respond accordingly. Are we clear?"
Silence.
"Are we clear?"
"Yes." His voice is barely a whisper. "We're clear."
I end the call and set the phone down on my desk. My hand is steady, my breathing even. The conversation didn't raise my pulse by a single beat.
This is what I am. This is what I do. I make threats, and I follow through on them. I protect what's mine, and I destroy anyone who threatens it.
Bianca isn't mine. I know that. She made it clear enough in the study, with her sharp questions and her sharper silences. She's here because she has no other options, not because she wants to be.
