Tucked between a thick architectural magazine and a heavy cream envelope was a small, off-white square. It looked out of place. It wasn’t the high-bond, embossed paper the Lobanovs usually received. It was cheap. Unmarked.
And as I picked it up, a scent hit me.
It was faint—so faint I might have imagined it if I weren’t so attuned to the sensory details of my past. It smelled of woodsmoke and pine. Not the manicured, expensive pine of the estate, but something wilder. Something raw.
My hands began to shake.
I turned the envelope over. There was no return address. No stamp. It had been hand-delivered, likely slipped into the gate’s lockbox or passed through a courier.
I tore it open with fumbling fingers.
Inside was a single scrap of paper, torn from a ledger. On it, a single word was written in a dark, hurried ink.
????.
Mila. In Cyrillic.
Beneath it was a single sentence that made the floor beneath my feet feel like it had vanished into a void:I’m alive.
In that moment, the world went silent. The blood in my veins turned to ice, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe. I knew that handwriting. I had seen it on birthday cards I’d kept in a shoebox for a decade. I had seen it on the back of old photographs of a man with kind eyes and a rifle slung over his shoulder.
My father.
Lev Petrov. The man who had disappeared into the shadows of the Russian underworld years ago after a hit on a Moretti enforcer. I had spent years mourning him. I had made peace with his ghost, weaving a narrative of a tragic hero who had died to keep me safe. I had built my entire identity on the foundation of his absence.
And now, with two words, he had returned to haunt me.
I’m alive.
The paper felt like it was burning my skin. My mind raced, spiraling through a thousand questions. Where had he been? Why now? Was he in the city? Was he watching the house?
And then, the most terrifying question of all: Does Alexei know?
I looked at the door, half-expecting my husband to stride in and demand to see what was in my hand. Alexei’s protection was a fortress, but it was also a panopticon. He knew the contents of my bank accounts, the names of my childhood friends, the exact rhythm of my sleep. But he didn’t know this.
I crumpled the paper in my fist, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I can’t tell him.
The realization came with a sharp, jagged fear. I more than liked Alexei—or at least, I was falling into the dark, gravitational pull of him—but I knew what he was. He was a man who solved problems by eliminating them. He was a man who controlled every variable.
If I told him my father was alive, Alexei wouldn’t see a daughter’s reunion. He would see a rogue sniper, a loose end, a threat to the security of his wife and his unborn child. He would see a target.
I shoved the envelope and the note into the pocket of my cardigan, my fingers trembling so violently I had to clench them into balls. I had to hide it. Not because I wanted to lie, but because I didn’t know how to survive the truth.
If our bond was fragile before, this secret would be the stone that shattered it.
I spent the rest of the day in a fugue state. I walked through the house like a ghost, the weight of the paper in my pocket feeling like a lead weight. Every time a floorboard creaked or a door opened, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
I skipped lunch, claiming a headache. Anya came by with tea, her face clouded with concern, but I couldn’t look her in the eye. I felt like a traitor in the home that was just beginning to feel like mine.
By late afternoon, the house felt too small. The air was thick with the scent of lilies and floor wax, and I felt like I was suffocating. I needed air. I needed to see the world beyond these walls, even if it was just from the balcony.
I wrapped a thick cashmere shawl around my shoulders and stepped out onto the private balcony attached to our suite.
The cold hit me like a physical blow, sharp and cleansing. The estate was draped in a fresh layer of snow, the white expanse broken only by the dark lines of the driveway and the silhouettes of the guards. The sky was a bruised purple, the sun dipping below the horizon and casting blue shadows across the world.
I leaned against the stone railing, my breath blooming in white clouds before me. I reached into my pocket and touched the corner of the envelope.
