I don’t watch Caleb long. He’s not the one with his hand on my girl.
On stage, the MC is frozen with her gold smile, eyes wide enough to count her lashes. The mic squeals once in her palm. The host who can vamp anything can’t vamp this.
Timofey calculates fast. I feel it from across the room. He measures uniform density, angles to the stairs, the distance to the curtains on stage left. He leans in to Mary, lips close to her ear, and then—he moves.
He doesn’t run. He relocates. Calm, assured, the important man escorted offstage for a discreet chat. He pivots them both toward the wings, using his body to block her from the audience and the line of the nearest officer, who has finally put the face to the name.
“Volkov!” a cop near the aisle shouts, pointing. He keys his shoulder mic. “Stage left, do not let him—”
I’m already moving.
Pillar to aisle. A waiter stumbles into me; I put a hand on his shoulder and move him aside without breaking stride. A chair screeches. Glass skitters. Someone yells, “What is happening?” and someone else answers, “Don’t film me.”
“Lev,” I say. “Front of stage. Now.”
“On it,” he says, too cheerful. “I’ve always wanted to ruin a gala.”
“Dima,” I say, cutting between tables. “Seal the service corridor. He’ll go for the elevator.”
“Already there,” Dima says. “Two in black suits just tried to look invisible. They failed. One sleeping. One learning.”
“Boris?” I duck a woman’s fur and a camera lens. A hand with diamonds catches my sleeve—the owner asks where the powder room is, panic-drunk. I peel her off and keep going.
“Jamming his comms now,” Boris says. “Hotel in-house security is split. Half are professionals; half are pocket money. I’m bribing the second half with door control.”
“This is illegal,” Caleb says behind me, strangled now, the varnish gone. “You can’t— Do not touch me! Do you know who I am?”
“Yeah,” Lev says, standing up on a chair two rows ahead of me, using height and arrogance to part the crowd. “You’re the guy who’s not matching donations anymore.”
He jumps down and lands lightly. He wears nothing that looks like a weapon and moves like a man who doesn’t need one to make a point. I catch his eye. He sees where I’m going and starts angling opposite—herding from the other side.
Timofey and Mary hit the curtain. The stage swallows them.
I take five steps and tear the curtain aside.
The gala dies behind me—sound drops, light thins. Backstage is a concrete throat: cables underfoot, cold air from vents, EXIT signs that don’t mean safety. Radios spit static. Someone barks orders down a corridor. Metal doors line both sides like teeth.
I tune all of it out.
Mary’s voice threads the noise, raw in my ear.
“Let me go!”
Breathless. Fighting.
A scuff of heels on carpet. A muffled impact against a wall.
Then his voice—close, almost affectionate.
“Move, sweetheart. I’d hate to paint this hallway with you before dessert.”
Mary’s breath breaks over the comm.
My vision narrows.
The backstage isn’t the soft, velvet quiet people imagine—it’s a maze of hard edges and blind corners. Black-painted walls, metal catwalks above, the hum of generators vibrating underfoot. Three doors are bolted shut with red padlocks; one door at the far end stands half open, light spilling through like a slit in a throat.
The air smells of sweat, varnish, and hot cables. My shoes crush something—a headset, dropped and forgotten. Voices murmur from behind one of the locked doors, security trying to figure out which way to run. None of them matters.
