"It's not sudden. It's business. Alexei's cousin running a gallery that moves high-value Russian artifacts through Manhattan? That's our concern."
"Of course." He doesn't believe me. I don't blame him. "And the videos you've been watching for the past ninety minutes?"
I could lie. Could tell him it was research, investigation, due diligence.
Instead, I tell him the truth.
"She reminds me of Elena."
The words hang in the air between us, heavy and sharp and more honest than I've been in fifteen years.
Sergei doesn't respond immediately. Just watches me with those steady eyes that have seen me at my worst and stayed anyway. Finally: "She's not Elena."
"I know."
"Elena is gone."
"I know." My hand is moving again, tracing on the desk without conscious thought. E-L-E-N-A. The pattern worn so deep I could do it blind, drunk, dying.
"Then why—"
"Because she's a former ballerina, Sergei. Because her career ended in a fall that was ruled an accident but wasn't." I pause,choosing words carefully. "Because she survived something that should have destroyed her, and I want to understand how."
It's not the whole truth. Not even close. But it's all I can admit right now.
"Saturday night," Sergei says quietly. "Gallery opening. We'll assess the situation with the stolen artifacts and determine if she poses any risk to Philadelphia interests."
Lie.
"Just you and me," I confirm. "Low profile. We're attending an art exhibition, not starting a war."
"Yet," Sergei mutters, but he's already making arrangements.
I turn back to the window, watching Philadelphia wake up beneath me. The compound is secure, the operations are running smoothly, the money keeps flowing. Everything is exactly as it should be.
Except me.
Except this thing in my chest that feels like awakening after fifteen years of sleep, and I don't know if that's hope or horror.
I look down at my desk, at the contract I've unconsciously traced all over with Elena's name. The letters overlap and blur together,frantic and desperate and exactly like the pattern I wore into the carpet the night she died.
But there, in the corner, almost hidden among the E-L-E-N-As, is something new.
S.
Just one letter. Added to the end of Elena's name without conscious thought.
E-L-E-N-A-S.
I stare at it. At the letter that appeared while I was thinking about midnight dancing and broken ankles and a woman I've never met who somehow crawled inside my chest and made a home in the ruins.
I should be furious.
Should erase it, pretend it never happened, recommit myself to the promise I made Elena.
Instead, I'm going to Manhattan because I need to see her in person, and that terrifies me more than any enemy I've ever faced.
Saturday can't come fast enough.
