Dimitri studies me for a moment. Not judging. Not pushing. Just…seeing me. Then he nods once and leaves me to it, taking a comms device with him as he moves to coordinate with Sylvester and the Zurich unit.
So I sit.
All night.
All the way into dawn.
In front of the surveillance feed—four different angles of the Deveraux banking headquarters, rotating on a loop. Every person who steps in or out. Every car. Every service worker. Every pattern. Every anomaly.
The screens glow cold blue against my face as the hours drag. My legs go numb. My back starts to ache. My eyes burn. But I don’t leave. Not even for water. Not even to stretch. I’m afraid that if I blink too long, I’ll miss something vital. Something that leads to my mother.
Finally, night gives way and Zurich wakes up beneath a sky the color of steel. And I’m still there. Still watching.
Fighting sleep with the stubbornness of a child and the desperation of a woman who’s already lost too much.
Around six in the morning, Dimitri returns with two coffees in hand. He stops at the doorway when he sees me exactly where he left me—legs folded under me, eyes glued to the monitors, shoulders stiff.
His voice softens in a way I don’t think he notices. “Vivian….”
But I don’t look away from the screens. I can’t.
“I don’t want to miss anything,” I whisper, blinking hard as another figure steps through the banking doors. “Not this time. Not again.”
He sighs—quiet, frustrated, aching in a way he won’t admit.
Then he walks in and sets one of the cups beside me. As he turns to leave, he bends and presses a kiss to my forehead.
Soft. Brief. Gone before my breath even catches.
I’m so distracted by his mouth, I almost miss what’s on my screen.
A car pulls up to the Deveraux building. Black. Unmarked. Too slow, too deliberate.
I lean forward.
The back door opens.
And someone is dragged out.
My heart stops.
The figure is slumped, barely conscious, wrapped in a thin coat like she was yanked from a hospital bed. Her hair—silver, familiar—falls over her face.
“No…no, no—” My breath punches out of me. “Dimitri!”
Before I’ve even finished the word, he’s beside me, his hand gripping the back of my chair as the screen shows two men hauling the woman upright.
Her face lifts.
My mother.
Drugged. Frail. Confused. Barely walking.
Flanked by two guards wearing the Koval insignia.
They drag her inside.
“Oh God,” I gasp. My hands fly to my mouth. “That’s her—Dimitri, that’s my mother—”
