I feel something in my chest shift, heavy and dangerous. Old anger stirs, testing locks I have spent years fastening, but my hands stay loose at my sides and my face does not change.
“Kill external feeds to backup,” I say. “Save that recording in three separate locations. One offline. No one touches it without me.”
“Yes, Pakhan,” Vladislav says, fingers flying over keys. I place my hand on the small of Raina’s back. She gets the cue and walks out with me, into the empty corridor outside. The small muscles in her jaw twitch. For a woman whose mind is always reaching for the next pattern, even her silence looks numb.
“You moved alone,” I say.
She flinches, just a fraction, then looks up at me. Her pupils are huge in the low light, turning her hazel eyes almost black.
“I woke and you were gone.” Frustration creeps into my voice. “Raina, I get why you came, but you’re going to need to be more careful.”
“I didn’t know he would trigger a live feed,” she says. Her voice is hoarse. “The notification popped up when I was already here. I was tracing a missing hour in the logs, Sergei. Someone inside scrubbed the security feed before the alarm tonight. The signature is Mikhail’s. Your golden coder slipped a knife between your ribs, and I’m very sure he’s working with The Courier.”
Anger sparks under the fear. Good. She's not all terror.
“Mikhail,” I repeat. The man is supposed to be on sick leave.
“Yes,” she says. “His style, his encryption. I would bet my life on it.”
“You already are,” I say, lifting my eyebrow. Mikhail or not, The Courier’s target is Raina. If I can’t keep her safe, the rest is meaningless.
Her mouth tightens.
“I would have gone to tell you,” she says, lifting her chin. “Before I could, every screen went black, and then he was just there. You saw the rest.”
This has to end.
“You don’t move alone in my house again,” I say, iron in my voice. “Don’t come down here without an escort. Don’t chase ghosts in my systems while I sleep two rooms away. That’s not part of the deal.”
“I’m not your prisoner,” she says, her mouth stiff. My shirt on her brushes my chest. “I said you would protect me. I didn’t say you would chain me to a bed and call it mercy.”
“If I have to chain you to keep you alive, I will,” I answer. I hear my own voice and almost don't recognize it. There is something raw under the words.
She laughs, short and sharp. “There he is,” she says. “The man who thinks love is just another word for ownership.”
“Don't use that word like you think you know how I feel,” I say.
“Do I not?” she asks. Her eyes flash. “You would rather burn this city than admit you care about anyone. You run on control. You don’t know how to hold anything without crushing it.”
I take a step closer until there’s no space left between us. Vladislav pretends to be invisible, fingers over the keyboard, eyes glued to his screen.
“I can’t lose you again,” I say. The words cost more than any threat I have ever made.
Raina freezes.
“Not now,” I add, my voice dropping, jaw tight. “Not after five years of pretending you were just a scar I could live with. Not after hearing there is a child out there carrying my blood.”
Her breath hitches.
“This isn’t about love,” I say. “I will not let him take what is mine. You. The girl. The pieces of a future I now want more than any of this.” My hand finds her jaw. Her muscles quiver under my fingers. Her gaze drops to my mouth, then back to my eyes. The defiance in her eyes falters, thinning into pale gold, something she refuses to let fully surface.
My phone buzzes in my hand, sharp and insistent, snapping my attention to it. It’s a message from an unknown number. No text. Just a link. I tap it. A map opens, coordinates in neat rows, a pin dropping onto an aerial view of birch trees and a pitched roof. A narrow lane. The curve of a river I recognize.
Raina leans in, eyes narrowing as she pores over the screen. “It is Vera’s home,” she says, breath hot, voice gone thin.
The Courier has just put a mark on my daughter.
7
