“This isn’t a talk,” I say. “This is a show.”
“Of course it is a show,” he says. “Everything is. You of all people should understand that. You pick your clothes and your tone and your stance in every room you walk into at his side. You built a whole persona out of knives and calm. It has served you well.”
“I don’t care what you think I am,” I say. “Tell me what you want.”
He gives a soft inhale.
“There it is,” he says. “The question I have been waiting for.”
The small window with Nadia grows again for a moment. He lets me look at her, then shrinks it. The main part of the screen stays black. No face. Only a voice and a line.
“What I want is simple,” he says. “I want you to stop trying to hold up a structure that is already falling. You don’t need to keep putting your body between Sergei and the bullets he should have gotten years ago. What you need is to stop patching up old systems and build something new, with someone who’ll still be alive ten years later.”
“You want me to join you,” I say, one brow cocked up.
“Yes,” he answers. “You know how his business runs and where the real pressure points are, who he pretends to trust and who heactuallytrusts.” He sighs. “You’re aware of which accounts shifted from his name and you can help me do what I want to with much less bloodshed. Nadia will benefit from this too. She’ll be safe, safer than she is with Sergei.”
I let the words settle. They are heavy and smooth. They slide into places I don’t want them to reach.
“And if I say no?” I ask.
“Then the shape of things changes,” he says. “Not for me. For you.”
I frown at the screen. “You’re going to need to be clearer.”
“It means you will only see Sergei or Nadia once more,” he answers. “To say goodbye.”
I grip the back of the chair. The wood cuts into my palm.
“You’re saying you’ll kill them,” I say.
“I’m saying you will lose them,” he answers. “Death is only one form of loss. I don’t need to kill Sergei to end him. I can take his routes, his money, his men, his access. I can cut the world away from him until he stands in a bare room with a gun and a ledger that mean nothing. I can leave him breathing on that spot for years while the city forgets his name. That is a cleaner end than most men in his position ever get.”
“And Nadia?” I ask. My throat feels raw.
“She will not die by my hand,” he says. “I’m not interested in hurting children. She will live. Where and how depends on many things. Some of those things you control. Some of them you throw away if you spit in my face right now.”
He is careful with the words. He doesn’t promise that no one else will hurt her. He doesn’t promise that his hands are the only ones I should worry about.
“So this is my choice,” I say. “Stand with him and lose them. Stand with you and keep them.”
“Not exactly,” he says. “Stand with him and lose them and yourself. Stand with me and keep a path to them. I’m not asking you to love me. I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to work with me. You can still hate me every day. I won’t mind. Hate is honest. I just need your mind and your hands pointed in my direction instead of his.”
Silence spreads out between us. The only sound in the room is the soft tick from the stove and the faint hiss of wind against the window.
I walk away from the table and stand by the window again. My reflection sits faintly over the snow and trees. Pale face. Dark hair pulled back. Eyes that have seen too much in too few years.
Sergei is somewhere in that city with his hands in blood and his jaw set. He thinks he can pull me back from anything. He thinks the world will always give him one more route, one more play, one more chance to cut his way through.
Nadia is in her bed with a bear under her chin. She trusts that when she opens her eyes, one of us will be there. Her mother. Her father. Someone who speaks her language and knows her little boats by name.
Anastasia sits in that chair, loyal and not loyal, both at once. A woman who would step in front of a bullet for my child and still turn a blind eye when a stranger tells her to pour a stronger drink.
My palms sweat. My chest aches. I press my forehead against the cool glass and close my eyes for a second. I see Vera’s body on the floor with blood under her head. I see Sergei’s face when he realized the Courier had been in his house all along. I see the way Nadia looked at me when she said she would keep her fists up.
The voice cuts through my thoughts.
“I won’t ask again after today,” the Courier says. “This isn’t a game where you can move back and forth between sides. You have one call.”
