Surrounded by paintings and sculptures and expensive things that don't matter in what must be her gallery. She’s dancing on pointe, her body in a perfect arabesque despite the ankle that was supposedly destroyed five years ago. Her face is turned away from the camera, but I can see the line of her neck, the arch of her back, the way she holds herself like she's still on a stage even though she's completely alone.
She's dancing at midnight in her closed gallery, and something about that—about the solitude, the privacy, the desperate need to move even though it must hurt—breaks something in my chest.
I slam the file closed.
"Where did you get this photo?" My voice sounds wrong. Too rough. Too affected.
"Security footage from a contact we have in Manhattan. The gallery's system isn't exactly Fort Knox. He pulled it as part of the background check." Sergei pauses. "Should I not have included it?"
"No. It's fine. It's—" I stop, because I don't know how to finish that sentence. Because seeing her dance alone in the dark feels like looking at something I shouldn't see, something private and painful, too close to my own midnight rituals.
I spend my nights tracing Elena's name.
She spends hers dancing for ghosts.
We're both haunted by things we can't let go.
"The stolen Fabergé eggs," I say abruptly, redirecting. "What's the provenance? Where did they come from?"
Sergei consults his tablet. "Two are from her permanent collection, legitimately acquired through auction houses. The third is on loan from a private collector in London. All paperwork appears clean, but you know how that goes with Russian imperial pieces."
"They could have been stolen decades ago and laundered through enough sales that the trail's cold."
"Exactly. The concern is whether she's knowingly moving stolen goods or if she's being used as an unwitting channel."
"Run deep background on the gallery's acquisition history. I want to know every piece she's sold in the last three years, where they came from, where they went." I pause. "And get me an invitation to her next exhibition."
Sergei's eyebrows rise slightly. "You're planning to attend?"
"I'm planning to investigate if Alexei's cousin is compromising Philadelphia's interests with her gallery operations." The lie is transparent, and we both know it.
"Of course, Pakhan. There's an exhibition opening this Saturday. 'Lost Romanov Treasures.' Should be easy enough to arrange attendance."
"Do it."
He nods and turns to leave, but I stop him with a question I shouldn't ask. "The file says she's Alexei's cousin. How close?"
"Second cousin. Her grandmother and Alexei's maternal grandfather were siblings. Not close growing up—different cities, different lives. But still family. Still connected to the Morozov bloodline."
Which means she's connected to the reform movement, and that I should hate her on principle.
I should want nothing to do with another ballerina connected to the families who think cooperation with law enforcement makes us safer instead of dead.
Yet, I'm opening my laptop and searching for performance videos.
I find them easily—YouTube is full of ballet performances, and Sonya Morozova was famous enough that people recorded her. I click on the first one: Swan Lake, filmed three months before the accident. She's in white, playing Odette, moving across the stage like gravity is optional.
She's extraordinary.
Not like Elena—Elena was fire and passion, all dramatic lines and powerful movements. Sonya is something else. Ethereal. Delicate. Like she might disappear if you breathe too hard, but also like she's stronger than steel beneath the illusion.
I watch her dance with Anton Kozlov. His hands on her waist, her ribs, lifting her like she weighs nothing. Watch the way they move together, the trust it requires to let someone hold your life in their hands.
But my focus is on the way he looks at her when she's not looking at him.
Possession. Obsession. Ownership.
I've seen that look before. In the mirror, when I used to look at Elena.In the faces of men who collect beautiful things and call it love instead of captivity.
