The meal passed more easily than I'd expected. The brothers talked about business—New York operations, shipping schedules, a problematic contractor in Athens who needed "motivation" to complete a construction project on time. I listened more than I spoke, absorbing information, building a picture of the empire Vasily controlled.
It was larger than I'd realized. More complex. Not just nightclubs and protection rackets, but shipping companies and real estate developments and investment portfolios spanning three continents. Hundreds of employees, many of whom probably had no idea who truly owned the businesses that signed their paychecks. Entire communities whose livelihoods depended on companies that existed, at least in part, to clean dirty money.
The moral clarity I'd clung to since my kidnapping was getting harder to maintain. These weren't faceless criminals—they were brothers who argued about market strategies, who worried about employee retention, who built things as well as destroyed them.
"You're quiet," Vasily said, drawing me back to the present.
"Just thinking."
"About?"
I hesitated, not sure how to articulate the gray areas multiplying in my mind. "It's more complicated than I expected. All of this."
Semyon made a sound that might have been agreement. "The world usually is. People want simple stories—heroes and villains, good and evil. Reality is messier."
"Reality is choices," Vasily said quietly. "Every day, hundreds of them. Some good. Some necessary. Some we carry for the rest of our lives."
His eyes met mine across the table, and I knew he wasn't talking about business anymore.
Semyon cleared his throat. "I should review the Aegean report before tomorrow." He stood, gathering the folder I'd given him. "Mrs. Chernov. Vasily."
Then he was gone, and we were alone.
The silence that followed felt different from before—charged with everything we'd been avoiding all day.
Vasily didn't speak immediately. He poured himself more wine, then topped off my glass without asking. The gesture was small, almost unconscious, and somehow more intimate than if he'd touched me.
"You did well today," he said finally. "Semyon doesn't give grudging approval easily."
"He gives it even less easily than you warned."
"He's protective. Of the organization, of the family." He swirled the wine in his glass, watching the light play through it. "He didn't want you here. Thought you'd be a liability."
"And now?"
"Now he's reserving judgment. Which, for Semyon, is practically an endorsement."
I should have felt triumphant. Instead, I felt exhausted—wrung out from the work, from the constant vigilance, from the effort of maintaining walls that kept developing cracks.
"I should go to bed," I said, not moving.
"You should." He didn't move either. "You've had a long day."
The terrace was quiet, the only sounds the distant crash of waves against the cliffs and the whisper of wind through the gardens. Stars had emerged overhead, scattered across the darkness like spilled diamonds.
"Thank you," I said. The words surprised me even as I spoke them.
Vasily's eyebrows rose. "For what?"
"For giving me something to do. Something real." I stared at my wine glass, unable to meet his eyes. "I was going insane. The boredom, the isolation—it was worse than anything else. At least today I felt like myself again."
"That was the intention."
"I know. That's what makes it complicated."
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "What do you mean?"
"I mean—" I stopped, struggling to articulate the tangled mess of my thoughts. "I hate that you were right. I hate that you knew what I needed before I did. I hate that you keep doing things that make it harder to—"
