I wake early.
Usually, the ritual is straightforward: eyes open, breath steady, brain already categorizing the day into priorities and threats. But this morning, there's grit in the gears. Last night lingers under my skin, stubborn as smoke. When I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, my ribs don't hurt, my hands aren't bloody—nothing about my body announces what happened—but the memory is there: candlelight, shouts, the sudden cut of the electricity, Maksim's shoulder driving me into the floorboards.
I move through the penthouse without turning on the lights.
The kitchen is a pale rectangle of city glow and chrome. Maksim is there. The espresso machine is already warm. A small porcelain cup waits on the counter, sugar already dissolved.
He doesn't look at me when I enter.
That's new.
Not the silence—we've lived in silence for days—but the way his gaze refuses to settle. It tracks the perimeter, the elevator, the window, skipping over me like I'm a blind spot.
I take the cup and drink.
It's perfect. He does not miss, not in any way that matters.
"I have work," I say. My voice sounds wrong in the quiet room—too formal, as if I'm speaking to an employee instead of the man who stood in the steam with me six hours ago.
"I'll be outside the door."
He says it before I finish speaking. No edge, no softness—just a statement of fact.
He came out of the bathroom last night scrubbed clean, dressed in the cotton clothes I handed him, and his eyes held something I couldn't place. This morning, that something feels simpler: a door closing.
I don't ask him why he pulled back.
I don't let myself chase it into questions. Questions turn into arguments, and arguments turn into weaknesses. Whatever happened in that shower happened. He made his choice. I'll live with it.
I take the cup into my office and shut the door.
The room is smaller than my father's at the estate, and I prefer it. Two walls of shelves hold books I've actually read. A desk sits beneath a window that looks down on the grid. A safe in the corner is heavy, dumb, and dependable.
I need something on Boris that my father cannot dismiss.
The conversation with Lorenzo Rosetti confirmed what I already suspected, but confirmation isn't proof. Sergei will not move against his own brother just because an Italian says something in a restaurant and looks sincere while saying it. Sergei doesn't gamble when blood is involved.
So I turn to paper.
The safe opens under my hands with the soft mechanical clicks of familiar steps. Inside are the files I don't keep on a server: old work, real work—names, routes, favors owed. The pieces people believe they can hide because they assume no one will ever bother to read the footnotes.
I carry a stack to my desk and start digging.
Boris has been in this world long enough to recognize how men look for betrayal. He buries his tracks in ordinary things: a payment disguised as routine maintenance, a meeting that appears to be charity, a favor masked as politeness.
Time moves without announcing itself. A paper cut stings my thumb. My espresso cools untouched. The desk fills with neat piles: dead ends, half-threads, small notes that might matter later.
I uncover plenty about Boris's history. He built relationships. He laid groundwork. He ensured the Baranov name opened doors in Washington and New York.
Nothing proves he's trying to cut my throat.
I return to the safe for another stack.
My hand catches a folder I had forgotten was even there. It slides out, spilling papers onto the floor of the safe. My stomach tightens before my brain catches up.
I know that folder.
I labeled it five years ago.
