"Your loss," she called after me, and she was right. A month ago, she would have been exactly what I wanted. Now I couldn't summon even the pretense of interest.
I left the club early, alone, and found myself walking. It was nearly midnight, cold enough that my breath fogged in the air, and I told myself I was just clearing my head. Just walking off the restlessness that had been building all week. The streets were quieter now, the crowds thinned to late-night stragglers and the occasional cab. I walked without direction, or so I told myself, until I looked up and realized where my feet had carried me.
Her building.
I stood across the street, looking up at the windows, trying to figure out which one was hers. Fourth floor, probably, based on where I'd seen her silhouette once when I'd walked past in the evening. A light was on behind thin curtains. She was awake.
What would you even do? Knock on her door? Tell her you've been following her for a week like some kind of stalker?
I laughed at myself, the sound harsh in the empty street. This was pathetic. I was pathetic. Rodion Rysev, who could have any woman in New York, standing on a sidewalk in the middle of the night, pining for a therapist who wouldn't even tell him her first name. A therapist with a fabricated identity and secrets she guarded like crown jewels. A woman I'd known for a grand total of two hours, spread across two sessions, and yet somehow she'd gotten under my skin in a way no one had managed in years.
I thought about going up. Thought about buzzing her apartment, seeing her face when she realized I was there. Would she be angry? Frightened? Would she slam the door, or would she let me in?
I didn't move. Just stood there in the cold, watching her window, wondering what she was doing. Reading, maybe. Or sitting in the dark the way I sat in the dark, staring at nothing,unable to sleep. Maybe she was thinking about me. Maybe she was replaying our sessions the way I replayed them, analyzing every word, every pause, every moment the air between us had gone thick with something neither of us would name.
Or maybe she wasn't thinking about me at all. Maybe I was just another patient, another broken man paying her to listen to his problems. Maybe the connection I felt was entirely one-sided, a fantasy I'd constructed because I was lonely and she was beautiful and she'd seen something in me no one else had bothered to look for.
I didn't believe that. But I couldn't be sure.
I walked away eventually. Looked back twice. The light in her window was still on, and I wondered if she was as sleepless as I was, and if so, what kept her awake.
Monday brought business I couldn't ignore. Gleb called from Chicago with news: the Petrovics had made contact with Cormac O'Shea. The alliance was moving forward. They'd been seen together in Boston, of all places—Kirill's territory—which meant my youngest brother was already aware and already, no doubt, planning something cold and precise.
"What do they want?" I asked.
"Same as before. The Irish give them a foothold in the Midwest; they give the Irish muscle and money. Cormac's been consolidating since his brother died. He's not as smart as Ronan, but he's meaner, and he holds grudges."
"What kind of grudges?"
"The kind that end with bodies. He blames us for Ronan's death, obviously. But he's practical enough to know he can't take us on directly. So he's building alliances, gathering strength, waiting for an opportunity."
"And the Petrovics are happy to help."
"The Petrovics are happy to use him. There's a difference." Gleb paused. "Demyan wants a call with all three of you. Tomorrow, if possible."
"Set it up."
I hung up and stared out at the city. The Petrovics, the Irish, the endless chess game of alliances and betrayals. It never stopped. You neutralized one threat, and another emerged. You killed one enemy, and his brother took his place. The machine kept grinding, and you either ground with it or got crushed beneath the gears.
I thought about Keira. About her fabricated identity, her careful routines, her life that looked so normal on the surface and was clearly anything but. She was running from something. Someone. And whatever it was, she'd been running long enough to get good at it.
Part of me wanted to protect her. To wrap her in the considerable resources at my disposal and make sure whatever she was afraid of never touched her again. It was an absurd impulse—I didn't even know what she was running from, let alone whether I could stop it—but the urge was there nonetheless, fierce and irrational.
Another part of me, the part that had kept me alive in this business for fifteen years, whispered caution. A woman with a false identity was a woman with secrets. And secrets, in my world, were weapons. They could be used against you by enemies or by the person keeping them, and you never knew which until it was too late.
I should walk away. Find another therapist, or abandon the pretense of therapy altogether. Put Keira Walsh—whatever her real name was—out of my mind and focus on the things thatmattered. The business. The family. The war that was always one wrong move away.
I knew what I should do.
Thursday couldn't come fast enough.
Chapter 6 - Keira
I almost referred him out on Monday.
I sat at my desk with my laptop open, cursor hovering over an email to David Chen—a colleague who specialized in high-functioning professionals with sleep disorders. David was good. Thorough. He had a waiting list three months long, but he owed me a favor from a case consultation last year. One email, and Rodion Zelenov would be his problem instead of mine.
I typed the first line.David, I have a patient I'd like to refer to you.
