Maybe not. But it's all I have.
***
I'm back in my office, reviewing the files Alexei sent on Sergei's known associates, when my phone buzzes.
Unknown number. No caller ID.
I answer anyway. "Yes."
Nothing. Dead air.
Then the line goes dead.
A moment later, a text arrives from the same number. An image file.
I open it.
The photo is from the auction. Bianca on the stage, bathed in spotlights, her black dress stark against the red velvet curtain behind her. Her face is caught in a moment of raw terror—the instant before she raised her chin, before she found her defiance.
Below the image, four words:
She belongs to me.
My blood goes cold.
Then hot.
I stare at the message, reading it again and again, each repetition stoking the fire in my chest. Sergei. It has to be Sergei. The arrogance of it, the possessiveness—sending me a photo of the moment he thought he'd won, reminding me that in his mind, she was already his.
She belongs to me.
No. She doesn't. She never did. She never will.
I pocket the phone and stride out of the office, my mind already racing through responses. I could trace the number—Alexei has the resources. I could send a message back, something equally provocative, let Sergei know that I'm not intimidated.
Or I could do nothing. Let him wonder. Let him stew in his own obsession while I fortify my defenses and prepare for whatever he's planning.
The rational choice is obvious. Don't engage. Don't give him the satisfaction of a reaction. Play the long game, the way I've always played it.
But the rational part of my brain has gone quiet, drowned out by something older and more dangerous.
She belongs to me.
I find myself climbing the stairs, moving toward her room without conscious decision. I need to see her. Need to confirm that she's still here, still safe, still—
I stop outside her door. Force myself to breathe.
She's fine. The guards would have alerted me if anything was wrong. Sergei is in Las Vegas or Seattle or wherever the hell he's slithering tonight—nowhere near San Francisco, nowhere near her.
The photo was a provocation. Nothing more.
But my hand is shaking as I lower it from the door I was about to knock on.
I stand there for a long moment, listening. Silence from inside. She's probably asleep, exhausted from another day of processing the wreckage of her life.
She belongs to me, Sergei wrote.
The words echo in my head, twisting into something else.
