She walked north on Madison, moving with purpose, head slightly down against the February wind. I followed at a distance, keeping other pedestrians between us, tracking her dark hair through the crowd. She didn't look back. Didn't seem aware of anything behind her. But she was aware of something. I could see it in the way she moved—the slight tension in her shoulders, the way her eyes swept the street at every intersection. Not paranoid, exactly. Practiced. The unconscious vigilance of someone who'd spent time looking over their shoulder.
I knew that walk. I saw it in my own brothers. In myself.
Who are you, Dr. Walsh?
She stopped at a coffee shop on 72nd, one of those small places that served overpriced espresso and attracted the kind of clientele who didn't blink at six dollars for a latte. I waited outside, watching through the window as she ordered, paid, collected her cup. She exchanged a few words with the barista—a young woman with pink hair who smiled like she knew her. A regular, then. I filed that away. She walked another eight blocks to a prewar building on the Upper East Side, nice but not flashy,the kind of place that whispered money without shouting it. She disappeared through the front door, and I noted the address, the lack of a doorman, the position of the security cameras.
This is insane.
I went home. And then the next morning, I told Kolya to take a different route to my first meeting. One that happened to pass her building.
She emerged at 8:15, coffee in hand, and walked south toward her office. I watched her until she disappeared around a corner, and then I told Kolya to keep driving, and I spent the rest of the day thinking about her.
This wasn't like me. I didn't obsess. I didn't follow women through the streets like some lovesick teenager. I was Rodion Rysev—I had my pick of women, and I'd never wanted any of them badly enough to rearrange my day around catching a glimpse. But she was different. From the moment she'd looked at me in that office, seeing through every mask I'd ever worn, she'd been different. I wanted to know why. I wanted to know everything.
By Wednesday, I had her routine memorized. She left for work between 8:00 and 8:30, always stopping at the same coffee shop. She arrived at her office by 9:00, saw patients until noon, took lunch at her desk or occasionally at a small deli three blocks away. More patients in the afternoon. She left between 5:30 and 6:00, walked home the same route every day, and spent her evenings—as far as I could tell—alone. No boyfriend. No friends who visited. No family who called. Just a woman in an expensive apartment, living a life that looked full from the outside and empty from within.
I recognized that, too.
I noticed other things. The way she checked her phone sometimes and didn't answer, her face tightening at whatever she saw on the screen. The way she avoided certain blocks, taking longer routes for no apparent reason. The way she startled once when a man bumped into her on the sidewalk—a full-body flinch, quickly suppressed, that spoke of reflexes trained by something more than New York crowds.
Who hurt you?
The question lodged in my mind and wouldn't leave. I found myself constructing theories, filling in the gaps with imagination when facts wouldn't suffice. An abusive ex, maybe. A stalker. Something bad enough to make her build walls that high, to make her flinch at unexpected contact, to make her live like a woman perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop. The protective instinct surprised me. I barely knew her. But I wanted to find whoever had taught her that vigilance and make them regret it.
Thursday, I ran a background check. Yegor handled these things for me—a hulking Ukrainian who'd worked private security in Kiev before I'd recruited him to New York. He had a gift for making information appear, and an even greater gift for making it disappear when necessary. I'd used him dozens of times over the years, vetting business partners, investigating competitors, occasionally checking up on women who'd gotten closer than I liked. This felt different somehow, but I told myself it was the same. Just due diligence. Just knowing who I was dealing with.
The report came back within hours. I read it in my office, the city spread out below me, and felt the first prickle of real unease.
Dr. Keira Walsh. Age 33. Licensed psychologist, private practice. Undergraduate at Northwestern, graduate work at Columbia. Pristine credit, no criminal record, no civil judgments. An apartment she'd occupied for three years, a practice she'd run for four. On paper, she was exactly what she appeared to be: a successful professional with a quiet life and nothing to hide.
But the paper was wrong.
I'd seen enough forged identities to recognize the signs. The records were too clean, too complete, too perfectly ordinary. No gaps, no irregularities, no loose threads. A real person's history was messy—addresses that didn't quite line up, employment gaps, the small inconsistencies of an unscripted life. Keira Walsh's history read like it had been written by someone who knew exactly what a background check would look for.
Someone had built this identity. Built it well.
I sat back in my chair and considered my options. Yegor could dig deeper—much deeper. Given enough time and money, he could unravel whatever fiction she'd constructed and find the truth underneath. I'd done it before, with business rivals and potential partners and the occasional woman who'd gotten too close. Information was currency in my world, and I'd never hesitated to spend it.
But something stopped me. Not ethics—I'd abandoned those long ago, at least by civilian standards. Not caution—if anything, the mystery made her more dangerous, not less. Someone hiding their identity that thoroughly was someone with secrets worth hiding. I should want to know what they were.
The truth was simpler and more complicated than that. I didn't want to find out through Yegor. I didn't want to read her secrets in a file, delivered by a man who'd never seen the way her eyes softened when she forgot to be professional, who'd never heard the catch in her voice when she asked a question that mattered.
I wanted her to tell me herself. I wanted to earn it.
You're getting soft.
Maybe. Or maybe I was finally getting honest about what I wanted.
I closed the file and told Yegor to stand down. For now.
That weekend, I almost broke.
I was at a club I owned in Chelsea, doing the rounds, being seen. The usual—beautiful women, expensive bottles, the performance of success that was as natural to me as breathing. A redhead in a dress that left little to the imagination pressed herself against me at the bar, whispering suggestions that would have interested me a month ago.
I felt nothing.
I kept thinking about Keira. About the way she'd looked at me in that last session, the way she'd almost leaned in before catching herself. About the secrets she was keeping and the secrets I was keeping and the strange intimacy of two liars circling each other in a small room. The redhead said something I didn't catch, her hand sliding up my chest, and I removed it gently and excused myself.
