"Just tell me." Her voice was steady. Too steady—the kind of control that came from bracing for impact. "I'd rather know."
I took her hands. Small and paint-stained, the particular calluses of someone who worked with brushes and chemicals and the rough edges of canvas stretchers. Her fingers were cold.
"Elena Voss doesn't exist," I said quietly. "The website was registered eight weeks ago. The photos were stolen from a real gallerist in Berlin. The email traces back through four layers of VPN to a server in Moscow." I paused. Made myself say the rest. "Deshnev infrastructure. Connected to Anton."
The whole thing was built to lure you out.
I watched the words land.
Watched her face as she processed them—the flicker of something that might have been hope dying, replaced by something harder. Something that looked like resignation wearing armor.
She didn't cry.
That was the worst part. I'd expected tears—the kind of devastation that came from having a dream crushed. Instead, she just nodded. A single, economical movement.
And something behind her eyes shuttered closed.
I knew that look. Had seen it in the mirror often enough during my own childhood, when showing emotion meant showing weakness and showing weakness meant being targeted. The particular survival mechanism of someone who'd learned that wanting things too openly made them vulnerable.
She was folding the dream away. Putting it somewhere it couldn't hurt her anymore.
I couldn't bear it.
"Auralia." My voice came out rougher than I intended. "Look at me."
She did. Reluctantly. Her grey-green eyes were dry but distant—already somewhere else, already retreating into the fortress she'd built around herself long before I ever found her.
"When this is over—" I gripped her hands tighter, trying to anchor her to the moment, to me. "When Anton is gone and you're safe. I'm going to make some calls. Real ones."
"Maks—"
"Nikolai's wife has connections from her ballet days. Patrons, collectors, people who actually care about art." The words were coming faster now, fueled by the particular desperation of watching her disappear behind that wall. "Maya runs in circles that intersect with gallery openings and charity auctions. And I—I know people. People who know people. People who would look at your work and see what I see."
She was shaking her head. Tiny movements, almost involuntary.
"Your work deserves to be seen," I said. "Not because of me. Not because of who I am or what resources I can bring to bear. Because it's extraordinary. Because when I look at what youpaint, I see everything you feel, everything you are, laid bare on canvas."
Her eyes were filling now. Finally. The tears she'd been holding back, the ones she didn't want to shed.
"You don't have to—"
"I want to."
The words came out fierce. Absolute. The particular tone I used when giving orders, when negotiating with dangerous people, when making promises I had no intention of breaking.
"I believe in you, Ptichka. I always have."
The tears spilled over.
Silent. Tracking down her cheeks the way they had that first day in my apartment, when she'd been overwhelmed by kindness and couldn't quite believe it was real. She didn't wipe them away. Just let them fall, something in her expression cracking open despite her best efforts to hold it together.
"I hate him." The words carried surprising venom. Auralia wasn't built for hatred—she was soft, anxious, designed for art studios and quiet corners. But in this moment, I could see something sharper underneath. "I hate that he made me hope."
I pulled her into my arms.
Ghost scrambled off her lap with an indignant huff, but I didn't care. All that mattered was the feel of her against my chest—small and shaking, finally letting herself feel the magnitude of what had been done to her.
"He'll pay for this," I murmured against her hair. "For all of it. I promise you."
