That would have made sense. That would have been predictable. Enough to make sense of why a young woman would uproot her life to come here halfway through a college degree.
But not this.
Not something that tastes like this amount of desperation.
“You… came to Moscow for the paycheck?” I ask, my brows knitting together.
She doesn’t answer immediately.
When she finally moves her mouth to speak, a sigh leaves her first. “Yeah. I flunked out of college, okay? Three years in and I never finished. Student loans don’t just disappear once you stop showing up for class. I needed a way to make money that my part-time wasn’t giving me. I’m probably going to be kicked out of my apartment because it’s technically student housing, so that’sanotherexpense I need to pay for. This job… it pays well enough to get me on my feet for a while.”
I absorb that, shifting my hands to rest on either side of my plate. “Why not get back into contact with your family? I’m sure they can help you out for the time being.”
That’s when the air changes. Her fingers curl around her fork. “How the fuck do you know about my family?”
My brow raises. “I told you,Maliya,I pulled your records the moment you left my estate. What did you think a background check consisted of?”
She sighs, suddenly slumping back in her chair. She’s quiet for a while, long enough that my lips part to pepper her with another question, but she cuts me off before I can.
“I don’t have any family. They’re dead to me.”
I recognize that tone. I’ve used it myself—more than once—on the battlefield, at funerals, behind locked doors after long nights where betrayal hit harder than bullets. It’s the voice of someone who’s long since given up hoping things will ever be different. The voice of someone who’s learned the hard way that some bonds are better cut clean.
I don’t ask her to elaborate. I don’t need to.
She pushes her plate away. “What are we doing here, Maksim? Seriously. I know you didn’t just take me out to feed me. What do you want?”
I watch her for a long moment, weighing my options.
I could lie, could offer some diluted explanation, some non-threatening reason as to why I took her from the gilded cage I locked her away in. But she isn’t going anywhere, and we’re far past the point of polite deflection. Besides, something inside me—something frustratingly human—doesn’t want to lie to her.
How ridiculous.
Still, I find myself telling her the truth, anyway.
“There are people after you, Ivy.”
Her lips part slightly, but no sound comes out.
I continue. “When I pulled your background check, I found a note on your file. A tag indicating someone else had already accessed your records. Weeks ago. Before you ever left the States. I don’t know who or why. But mysovetis looking into it. We’re tracing the request, the IP trail. Someone wanted access to your information badly enough to pull a full digital scrape.”
She stares at me. I can see it sinking in—the dread. The fear that she’s actually in much more danger than she thought she was. “Who would do something like that? I’m nobody.”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out. There’s a possibility that the reason your information was pulled has some connection to the drive-by at the cafe.”
I can see her trying to process it. See her instinct to deny it trying to kick in because why in the world would someone like her, as she said, a nobody, be tangled up in matters like this? Serious enough for it to be life and death.
“Are you…” She swallows. “Do you think someone is using me to get to Sergei? Or Yulia?”
Or me,my mind unhelpfully supplies.
“Perhaps.” I say aloud.
She closes her eyes for a beat, then opens them again slowly, her expression unreadable. She studies me for a long time, most likely searching for some sliver of humanity beneath the mask.
She lifts her glass of sparkling water, sipping it once, and sets it down with a soft clink against the table. “Well… That’s not terrifying at all.”
Despite everything, I smile.
