I cannot hear the voice on the other end, but I can see the effect it has on Ivan. His face drains of color. His posture changes, the confident survivor of the past week collapsing into something smaller, something that looks almost like fear. His shoulders curve inward. His chin drops fractionally. The transformation is subtle but unmistakable.
He looks like a child again. A boy standing before a father whose approval he has never been certain of.
"Father." The word comes out carefully controlled. "How did you get this number?"
The response is inaudible to me, but I see Ivan's jaw tighten. His eyes close briefly, and when they open again, something in themhas died. The man who was inside me moments ago, who looked at me with warmth and want and the beginning of something like peace—that man has retreated somewhere I cannot reach.
"I see." His voice is flat. Empty. "When?"
Another pause. Ivan's free hand clenches into a fist at his side. I watch his knuckles go white, watch the tendons stand out against his skin, watch the physical manifestation of a fear he cannot voice.
"I understand." He opens his eyes and looks at me, and what I see in his expression makes my blood run cold. "We will be there within the hour."
He ends the call and sets the phone down with exaggerated care.
"What happened?"
"My father received a video." Ivan's voice is steady, but I can hear the fractures beneath the surface. "From a security camera. An alley. Two men in a car."
The words hit me like physical blows. The alley. The kiss. The camera Ivan noticed and dismissed as a low-priority concern.
"How?"
"Boris's people must have been monitoring the area. Looking for patterns in our raids. They found the footage and sent it to my father as proof that his heir has been compromised." Ivan laughs, and the sound is hollow. Broken. "They could not kill us, so they exposed us instead."
I think about what that footage would show. Two men, faces visible in the dim light, kissing with a desperation that leaves no room for alternative interpretation. Not a tactical embrace,not a moment of confusion. The evidence of exactly what we have become to each other, preserved and transmitted to the one person who has the power to destroy us both.
"What did he say?"
"He ordered us to the Estate. Immediately." Ivan's eyes meet mine, and I see the terror beneath the control. "He said if we run, he will hunt you down himself."
The threat is clear. Not Ivan—me. Sergei is using me as leverage, the same way Boris tried to use me as leverage at the cabin. The bodyguard is expendable. The bodyguard is the weakness that can be exploited.
"Then we go," I say.
"Maksim—"
"We go." I cross to him, taking his face in my hands the way I did less than an hour ago when everything was different. "Running is not an option. If we disappear, your father will assume the worst about everything. About us. About the evidence we have against Boris."
"He might kill you." Ivan's voice cracks. "For touching me. For presuming?—"
"He might." I press my forehead against his. "But if we run, he definitely will. And we still have the evidence against Boris. Your father cannot ignore that."
"You do not know my father."
"No. But I know you." I pull back enough to look into his eyes. "And I know that you did not spend a week dismantling your uncle's empire to run away before the job is finished."
Ivan stares at me. The fear is still there, but something else is rising beneath it. The cold calculation I have seen him apply to every problem.
"He will try to separate us," he says.
"Yes."
"He will try to break whatever exists between us."
"Yes."
"And you are still telling me we should walk into that?"
