He watches the SUV as if it's the only thing he's permitted to do, as if he's trying to memorize the shape of the car that is taking his life away.
My throat tightens again.
The gates open.
We pass through.
Before the curve obscures the estate from view, Ivan lifts one hand—small, restrained. It's not a wave anyone else would notice. Not a performance.
A signal.
A promise.
I'm still here.
Then the road bends, and the estate vanishes behind the trees.
The gates close behind us with a slow certainty.
I lean back in the seat and let the vehicle carry me toward exile.
Ivan said tomorrow morning.
Sergei doesn't waste time when he deems something efficient. A private flight. A handoff. A drive. In less than a day, I will be back in a language I haven't spoken in years, under a steel-gray sky.
My leg throbs with every heartbeat.
I welcome it.
Pain is simpler than what I'm carrying.
I close my eyes, but I can't sleep.
The Kennel taught me not to want. It taught me that attachment gets you killed, that connection is leverage, that survival belongs to the empty.
Ivan taught me something different—not through speeches or principles, but through choices.
He chose me over strategy.
He chose me over his own inheritance.
He chose me even with his father watching.
I am being transferred like an asset. Stored like a weapon.
But I am not empty anymore.
Not completely.
Because there's a man in Chicago standing on stone steps, watching the gates close, and I know what his mind will do next. It will transform grief into a plan. It will turn loss into architecture. It will start building a way back.
He said he will come for me.
I believe he will try.
So I do what I have always done.
I survive.
