“The baseball hat,” I say, still trying to get more information out of a shell-shocked Vera. “What color?”
“Dark,” she immediately says. “Navy or black, I couldn’t tell.” She swipes at her tears with shaking hands. “He had it pulled low over his face, but I could still see… I could see his jaw and his mouth, and when the light hit just right, I saw his eyes and?—”
“Which direction did he go?”
She points toward the west wing, where the corridor branches off toward the parking garage exits. “He just turned and walked away. It’s like he wanted me to see him and then?—”
“Sergei!” I’m already moving, already pulling out my phone. “West wing, male, six-one, blond, baseball cap, gray jacket. Find him.”
“On it.” Sergei and Viktor take off at a run, speaking rapidly into their radios, pushing past startled shoppers. The other guards close in tighter around us.
I pull up my security team’s app and access the mall’s camera network. It takes precious seconds—seconds where whoever Vera saw is getting farther away—but then I’m in. Multiple camera feeds flood my screen.
I scan through them rapidly. West wing entrance. Parking garage. Exit corridors.
Goddammit. Nothing. But I don’t have access yet to all the footage and I won’t until we get back to the estate. Which means it’s time to go.
“We’re leaving.” I grab Vera’s hand. “Now.”
She looks confused. “But?—”
I’m beyond reasoning. “Now, Vera.”
I don’t give her time to argue. I pull her toward the nearest exit with my remaining guards forming a tight perimeter around us. Mikhail and Pavel take point while Anton brings up the rear, walking backward to watch us.
The SUV is waiting where we left it and I practically shove Vera into the back seat and slide in beside her, slamming the door before she’s even fully inside.
“Drive,” I bark at the driver. “Back to the estate. Don’t stop for anything.”
The engine roars to life and we’re moving before my seatbelt is even fastened.
The drive home is tense and silent except for the hum of the engine and the occasional crackle of the guards’ radios checking in.
Vera sits pressed against the far door, her arms wrapped around herself as she stares out the window but not really seeing anything. Her face is still pale.
“I’m not crazy.” Her voice is small and defensive.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You’re thinking it.” She finally looks at me, and her eyes are red-rimmed from crying. “I can see it on your face. You think I imagined it.”
Did I? My mind is racing through possibilities, trying to find explanations that don’t involve the impossible.
Pregnancy can cause all sorts of symptoms. Hormones. Stress. Vera’s been through trauma—the forced marriage, the lockdown, the pregnancy scare. Maybe her mind is creating patterns and seeing things that aren’t there.
But Vera isn’t hysterical and she isn’t the type to fall apart or see things that don’t exist. She’s a practical woman. If she says she saw something, then she sawsomething.
I just don’t know if what she saw was real.
“I believe that you saw someone,” I say carefully, not wanting to anger her. “I believe they looked like Alexei. But Vera?—”
“Itwashim.” She turns to face me fully now, and there’s steel in her voice despite the fear. “I know how it sounds. I know it’s impossible, but I’m telling you, Dimitri, that was Alexei. I would know those eyes anywhere. That smile. The way he moved. It washim.”
I want to argue and tell her that grief and trauma can play tricks on the mind. Sometimes we see what we want to see—or what we fear to see.
But looking at her face, at the absolute conviction there, I can’t bring myself to dismiss her. Not entirely.
“Okay,” I say quietly.
