“It is real.”
“Oh, I know. That’s what makes this so delicious.” The satisfaction in his voice makes something cold and dangerous uncoil in my chest. “You see, I’ve been watching you both for quite some time. Longer than you realize. I’ve learned something interesting about your lovely wife.”
I wait. Force myself to breathe steadily, to keep my voice level when I respond. He wants a reaction, wants to hear fear or rage or desperation. I won’t give him any of those things.
“She’s not actually hidden, you know,” he continues conversationally. “Oh, you’ve done an admirable job with security and the careful choreography of her public appearances. Hiding someone requires them to disappear completely. Elara… well, she’s far too bright a flame to ever truly disappear.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that she was never truly protected. Only delayed. I’ve been patient, letting her feel safe while I arranged more… permanent accommodations.” His tone shifts slightly, becomes more personal, more cruel. “You know, this reminds me of someone else. Someone from your past who thought your protection meant something.”
My blood turns to ice. He doesn’t say the name—doesn’t need to. We both know exactly who he’s talking about.
“Anna Kozlov,” I say quietly.
“Ah, so you remember. Good. I was afraid you might have moved on, forgotten all about your first great failure.” Marcus’s voice drips false sympathy. “Such a beautiful girl. Talented pianist, if I recall correctly. You were quite devoted to her, weren’t you? So determined to keep her safe from the dangerous world you inhabited.”
The memories crash back with surgical precision. Anna’s laugh, bright and infectious. The way she’d fall asleep with her head on my shoulder after concerts. The morning I found her apartment empty, no signs of struggle, just… gone.
“I orchestrated that, you know,” Marcus continues, and now there’s no pretense of civility in his voice, just naked cruelty. “The approach was elegant—befriend her through music circles,gain her trust, present opportunities that seemed too good to refuse. She thought she was going to Vienna to study with a renowned instructor.”
“Stop.”
“Instead, she spent six months learning what it means to be owned by someone who doesn’t view her as human. By the time she died—and yes, she did die, slowly and afraid and calling your name—she would have done anything, become anything, just to make the pain stop.”
The rage building in my chest is volcanic, controlled only by years of discipline and the knowledge that losing control now means Marcus wins. But underneath the rage is something worse: guilt that I’ve carried for ten years, the knowledge that my world, my enemies, my choices killed the only woman I’d loved before Elara.
“You killed her to hurt me,” I say.
“I killed her because she mattered to you, and because I wanted you to understand that caring about someone makes you vulnerable in ways you can’t protect against.” His voice becomes almost gentle, which somehow makes it more terrifying. “Just like Elara matters to you now.”
“This time is different.”
“Is it? You’ve made the same mistake twice, Nikola. Fallen in love with someone soft, someone who belongs in the light instead of the shadows. Someone who trusts you to keep her safe from monsters like me.” He pauses, lets the implication settle. “The only difference is that this time, I’m not going to be subtle about it.”
The threat is unmistakable. Direct. He’s not planning elaborate schemes or patient orchestration. He intends to takeElara openly, violently, and make sure I watch every moment of her destruction.
“You’re living on borrowed time,” I tell him, voice steady despite the fury clawing at my throat. “The second I find you—”
“You’ll what? Kill me, make me suffer?” Marcus laughs, genuine amusement coloring his words. “You’ve been trying to find me for three months, Nikola. I’ve been in the same city, sometimes the same building, watching your wife charm information out of my associates while you scramble to connect dots I scattered specifically to lead you nowhere.”
The admission hits like a physical blow. He’s been here. Close. Watching us work, watching us fall in love, planning whatever endgame he’s been building toward.
“This time will be different,” Marcus continues. “Anna disappeared quietly, privately, her suffering hidden from the world. Elara… Elara will break visibly. Publicly. Everyone who matters to her will watch it happen and know that your protection was an illusion.”
“You won’t touch her.”
“I already have. Every public appearance, every social event, every moment she’s spent gathering intelligence—I’ve been there, watching, documenting, preparing. She thinks she’s hunting me, but she’s been dancing to my choreography from the beginning.”
The call ends with his laughter echoing through the speaker, confident and cold and promising horrors I can’t prevent through traditional security measures.
I sit in the sudden silence, staring at intelligence reports that suddenly feel useless, surveillance data that means nothing if Marcus has been operating from inside our operation all along. Anna’s ghost sits in the room with me, reminding meexactly what happens when I fail to protect someone who matters.
This time is different. It has to be.
The office door opens quietly. Elara enters wearing one of my shirts over sleep shorts, hair loose around her shoulders, eyes immediately scanning the room for whatever threat she senses in my posture. She’s so much shorter than I am that the shirt is almost comically long, but she fills it out with those ample breasts and curvy hips.
“Bad call?” she asks, settling into the chair across from my desk.
