Of course, they kept tabs on their children. They would keep tabs on any weakness someone could use against Dmitri if needed.
But as of yet, nobody in this house knows these documents exist.
That won’t last long.
For a long time, I do nothing. The house keeps moving around me. Doors open somewhere down the hall. Footsteps pass the office once and keep going. Somebody laughs in another room. Routine carries on while I sit in front of the thing that will rip my life apart the second it reaches the wrong eyes.
Polina is upstairs. Maybe she’s reading. Maybe she’s pretending not to wait for me. I could walk out of this office right now and tell her everything. No half-truths. No protection dressed up as mercy.
My father had your parents killed. I found out two years ago. I hid it because I wanted more time before you looked at me and saw his blood.
There is no version of that conversation that ends with her staying, and I could never ask for anything more than a bitter “fuck you.”
I stand and cross the room once before I turn back. The laptop waits where I left it. The admin tools are one click away. Deleting the folder would take less than a minute. Burying it would take two. I know where Tony keeps the archived imports. I know how their backups run. I know which logs I would need to alter and which ones I could leave alone because nobody here is as thorough as they think.
I could make this disappear.
I already did once. My father spent his life deciding what other people could live with if it served him. He decided what truth they could bear. He decided what loss they could survive. He killed Polina’s parents to protect an operation. I hid the proof to protect myself from losing her.
The scale is different. The disease is not.
I sit again and pull up the admin panel. My login opens half the paths I need. Tony’s temporary override gives me the rest because he assumed I was helping. One command clears the active folder. Another corrupts the index. A third poisons the backup chain just enough to buy time.
Nobody would know.
Polina would keep looking at me the way she did last night. Angry, hurt, and wanting me anyway. I could hold on to that a little longer. Maybe long enough to get her out before this house turns into a war zone. Maybe long enough to pretend wanting something badly enough changes what I deserve.
My hand hovers over the keyboard.
Then I drop it into my lap and sit there breathing through the panic clawing up my throat.
No.
I do not get to bury her life twice.
So, I close the admin panel and leave the folder where it is. Then I switch off the ceiling fixtures and stay in my chair with the screen in front of me, finally accepting what I should have accepted two years ago.
The truth is here now. Sooner or later, it will reach her, and when it does, it will take everything with it.
