The city felt different with her beside me. It wasn’t quieter or gentler; it was sharper instead. As if I was suddenly aware of every turn, every passing car, and every man who might linger around her without my permission. She noticed everything.
Her fingers brushed mine naturally, and I noticed how well she fit in beside me. When we stepped down, and the doors opened onto my private garage, she took in the black cars, the men, the unspoken hierarchy with a calm that reminded me unpleasantly of Zhenya when she was young. She had been just as observant and unafraid. Ilana had been strictly inside the house and hadn’t noticed the army of men that was around the safe house at all times. This was all new to her, but she seemed to be taking it all in pretty well.
The first stop was brief.
A Morozov contact, one of their Miami men, had to meet us outside a café that pretended to be legitimate. I parked my car across the street, waiting for him to make his way to me.
“Who is he?” Ilana asked, not missing a single beat. She had noticed the man immediately.
“Someone who works for the Morozovs.”
“The most important Bratva family in Miami?” she asked, her memory already impressing me.
“Yes.”
She stayed quiet as the man tapped on my window, and I pulled it down. He passed me a wrapped bag, and I did the same, without so much as a single word exchanged between us. I nodded at him, and he quickly turned around and walked away. She watched the entire exchange closely, sharply, her shoulders tense until the man had finally disappeared back inside the restaurant.
“Is it always like this?” she asked quietly.
“Like what?”
“So… orderly.”
I almost smiled.
“It has to be,” I said. “Chaos gets you killed in our world.”
She absorbed the statement without comment while we headed towards our next errand, which I already knew would take a little longer. It was nothing but low-level surveillance, but I had been entrusted with the job, so I had to do it correctly. It was a man who thought he was clever enough to slip through a net that had been tightening for weeks, and Iosif either wantedhim arrested or dead. I parked the car a block away, turned off the engine, and kept the windows down.
“You’re staying right here,” I said.
Her lips pressed together, but to my surprise, she nodded.
I watched her through the reflection in the windshield as I tracked the target, noticing how her eyes followed me. She was alert, but I knew she trusted me to keep her safe. When I came back ten minutes later, she looked up, as if she had been waiting for me to give her a report on my findings.
“Well?” she asked when I stayed quiet.
“He’s predictable.”
“And is that good?”
“For us, yes. We know exactly where he is going next.”
Her smile flickered, small but almost pleased. It surprised me how much I liked that. As if I had been looking for her validation all along. By the time we stopped near the waterfront, I’d already adjusted my plans. I had shortened routes and cut out anything unnecessary. I told myself it was all for her.
But it wasn’t.
I was actually enjoying this.
She leaned beside me, watching the man across the street without being told, subconsciously mirroring my posture and gaze.
“Is that the man we are following?” she asked under her breath.
“Yes.”
Her eyes lit up just a fraction.
“Like this?”
