But inside, I felt different.
The cold remained.
The loneliness lingered.
The ache of missing him sat under my ribs as it always had.
Yet something else had returned—something sharp and purposeful.
Boris isn't gone.
Or at least, the machinery bearing his name isn't.
Ivan is still in danger.
And somewhere in the organization, someone is moving pieces that Sergei either can't see or doesn't want to acknowledge.
I don't know who.
I don't know why.
But I'm going to find out.
The Kennel taught me to be a weapon.
Ivan taught me to be a person.
Now, I'm going to use both—quietly, carefully, from a thousand miles away—until the threat is truly eliminated this time.
Outside, the wind lashes against the concrete.
On the screens, static flickers across a camera monitoring the loading dock before clearing.
In the frigid expanse of Russia, a dog sets off in search of its prey.
24
IVAN
The burner phoneis still warm in my hand.
Maksim’s voice echoes in my skull, rough with disuse, carrying three months of separation across satellite links.
Boris is active. You are in danger. Trust no one.
I should destroy the phone. I should drop it into the trash chute and watch it vanish into the building’s throat, then wipe every surface I touched. My father monitors communications. If he discovers Maksim contacted me—if he learns the exiled bodyguard is still paying attention to things that do not concern him?—
But I cannot make myself let go.
For three months, I have heard nothing. Three months of silence. Three months of being the perfect heir: cold, ruthless, precise. Everything my father demanded, while something inside me slowly died from the absence of the only person who ever made me feel human.
Now his voice is in my head, and the warmth of the phone is the closest thing to his touch I have felt since the guards dragged him away.
I slide it into the bottom drawer of my desk where other secrets live, beneath files that look legitimate. When I straighten, my reflection catches in the glass wall: my face, my posture, my father’s eyes.
I hold the stare and feel the mask settle.
The meeting is at noon.
