I shrug because I don’t even know what I’ve grown to feel. “She’s under my protection.”
“That’s not what I asked.” He leans back, fingers steepled beneath his chin. “I asked if you’ve grown attached. Because from where I’m sitting, you’re exhibiting signs of something more than duty.”
I look up sharply, but don’t respond.
“Dimitri.” His voice softens slightly. “I understand the impulse to protect her. She’s pregnant with your brother’s child. That creates a bond, a sense of responsibility. But don’t confuse responsibility with?—”
“I’m not confused about anything,” I bite out. “And I’mnotdiscussing my personal life with you. What we will discuss is that someone in our organization is trying to kill us, and we need to find out who before they succeed.”
Konstantin sighs, clearly deciding to let it go for now. “What do you propose?”
I pull out another file and this one thicker, more worn. “I’ve been reviewing everyone who had access to both pieces of information. The meeting location and our route yesterday. There are seventeen people on that list.”
“Seventeen,” he murmurs as he takes the list, scanning it. I watch his eyes move down the page, taking in each name. “These are all trusted men. People who’ve been with us for years.”
That means nothing to me right now. “One of them is a traitor.”
“Or,” he says again, that careful tone back, “the Ashfords have better intelligence than we thought. Perhaps they’ve compromised our communications or?—"
“Perhaps nothing.” My patience is wearing thin. Why is my uncle being so fucking obtuse? “Someone close gave us up. Someone who knew exactly where we’d be and when. I need to figure out who before they try again.”
Konstantin sets down the list, his expression troubled. “Be careful, Dimitri. Paranoia can be as dangerous as complacency. If you start suspecting everyone, you’ll tear this organizationapart from the inside. That might be exactly what our enemy wants.”
He’s not wrong. Witch hunts destroy empires faster than external attacks ever could. But what’s the alternative? Ignore the pattern? Pretend someone isn’t actively trying to kill us?
“I’ll be careful,” I say, though we both know it’s a lie. Careful went out the window the moment that bomb went off. “But I’m not stopping until I find who’s responsible.”
My uncle glances at his watch and stands. “Then I’ll help however I can, you know that. But Dimitri—” He pauses, his gaze meeting mine. “Don’t lose sight of what matters. The living. The future. Don’t let the hunt for a traitor consume you.”
After he leaves, I sit in the heavy silence, staring at the files. The living. The future.
But I can’t think about the living without thinking about the dead.
I pull out another file. This one I’ve reviewed a hundred times and haunts me in the early morning hours when sleep won’t come.
Alexei’s case file.
The crime scene photos still make me cringe. My baby brother, lying in that warehouse, with two bullets in his chest. Blood pooling beneath him. Eyes staring at nothing. Dead at twenty-eight because I was stupid and let him go to a meeting he shouldn’t have gone to.
I’ve memorized every detail. The angle of his body. The position of his hands. The blood spatter pattern on the concrete. The shell casings found six feet away.
But something has been bothering me and I couldn’t quite articulate it until now.
I pull out the forensic report, scanning the section about the gunshot wounds.Close-range shots, approximately 3-5 feet based on powder burn patterns.
But when I look at the photos with a marksman’s eye, the powder burns don’t match close range. They’re too light. Too dispersed. They’re more consistent with shots fired from 10-15 feet away.
I grab the surveillance document with a timestamp from the warehouse district. The Ashford vehicles were captured on camera arriving at the warehouse at 9:40 p.m.
But Alexei’s time of death is estimated at 9:30 p.m.
I growl in frustration. How did they ambush him if they weren’tthereyet?
The inconsistency gnaws at me. I’ve noticed it before and dismissed it as margins of error in forensic estimates. But what if it’s not? What if?—
A knock interrupts my thoughts. Konstantinagain? But when the door opens, it’s Roman and he looks grim.
"Boss. We finished going through the wreckage from yesterday. You need to see this.”
