“How’s the virtual program working out?” he asked, his tone carefully neutral.
“Fine. Good. The professors are accommodating.” I kept my eyes on the bowl, counting bites like a child. “Anya’s handling it better than I expected.”
“Dmitri says she’s already decorated her entire study space with fairy lights.”
Despite everything, I felt a small smile tug at my lips. “Yeah, she did.”
“And you? Are you managing okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just… different. But necessary. I understand why we’re doing it.” The words came out flat, automatic. I sounded like a robot. Like someone reading lines from a script.
Silence reigned between us again, thick and uncomfortable. I forced down another spoonful of soup and prayed he’d get called away, give me space to breathe, to think, to figure out what the hell I was going to do.
And the powers that be granted my desperate wish.
His phone buzzed. Once, twice, three times in rapid succession.
“You should get that,” I said, hating the relief in my voice. “It might be important.”
He pulled out his phone, his expression darkening as he read whatever message had come through. When he looked up at me, I saw the conflict in his eyes—duty pulling one way, concern for me pulling the other.
“I need to take care of something,” he said finally, standing. “Will you actually eat the rest of that, or should I have Anna bring you something else?”
“I’ll finish it. Promise.” I met his eyes briefly, and for a moment, I wanted to tell him everything. Beg him to help me make sense of the chaos in my head. But the words stuck in my throat, trapped behind fear and confusion and the echo of that voice on the phone. “Go. Do what you need to do.”
He leaned down to press a kiss to my forehead. I closed my eyes, breathed in his scent. The scent of the expensive cologne I’d come to like and something darker underneath—smoke, danger, and safety all mixed together.
“Get some rest,” he murmured against my skin. “I’ll check on you later.”
“Okay.”
He left, and I sat alone in the kitchen with my half-empty bowl of soup and the weight of my secrets pressing down like a physical entity. I should eat. Finish the soup like I’d promised, take care of the baby, and be the responsible adult I was supposed to be. Instead, I sat there for a long moment, staring at nothing, before forcing myself to lift the spoon again.
One bite. Then another. Mechanical movements that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with keeping promises, even small ones.
When the bowl was finally empty, I placed it in the sink and was about to wash it when Anna rushed into the kitchen, insisting on doing the dishes. So I left the kitchen.
The house was quiet. Most of the staff had retired for the evening, leaving just the night security crew moving silently through the halls. I should go upstairs. I should try to sleep, even though I knew it would be futile.
Instead, I found myself wandering into the library.
It was one of my favorite rooms in the house—all dark wood and leather furniture, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that smelled like old paper and possibility. Alexei’s grandfather had built the collection, or so I’d been told. Alexei himself rarely used the room, preferring to work in his office or disappear into whatever dark corners of the city his business required.
But I’d claimed it as my own space, spending afternoons curled up in the oversized armchair by the window, losing myself in stories that had nothing to do with my life.
Tonight, though, I couldn’t seem to focus on reading. I pulled a book from the shelf at random—some nineteenth-century Russian novel I’d been meaning to get to—and settled into the chair.
I opened to the first page, reading the same sentence three times without absorbing a single word.
My mind kept drifting back to the phone call. To that voice. To the impossibility of it all.
“Don’t trust anyone, especially the Italians. There’s a traitor close.”
What did that mean? Who was I supposed to trust if not my own husband? And if there was a traitor in Alexei’s organization, shouldn’t I tell him? Wasn’t keeping this information to myself a betrayal in its own right?
But what if I’ve been wrong?
What if the call had been a trick, a manipulation designed to make me doubt the people around me? What if telling Alexei would play right into someone’s hands?
