I’d know in a few weeks if I was pregnant.
That wasn’t something I wanted to think about right now. I had a long way to go before I was safe.
I pressed my foot on the accelerator.
Chapter 51
Vadim
The first few days after she left I was occupied settling into my other property. Security had to be upgraded and the rebuilding of the compound drafted by an architect—a man I trusted precisely because he had rebuilt for me before and understood that certain rooms did not appear on official plans.
Mybykiand Olya moved with me. Radovan took a position at the new iron gates. Tau departed for a job in Spain. My constants remained my brother and my men—the same configuration they had always been, the same table, the same vodka, the same arguments conducted in the same order. The house was different. Everything else was identical.
There was speculation about what had taken place. No one said a word to me directly. Konstantin, Ruslan, Valentin and Bogdan knew. Tau and Radovan had been present. The rest of the brotherhood could draw their own conclusions. This wasn’t the Chechens. This wasn’t an external attack on the infrastructure or a challenge to the hierarchy.
This was a personal dispute.
There was a distinction and people understood it.
Her audacity made me want to choke the life out of her. At other times—the times I was being honest with myself in the cold shower at dawn with no audience—I grudgingly admitted that I had underestimated her. Comprehensively. The woman had assembled an exit inside my own house using my own resources and walked out through my own gates while my men held them open for her.
Right now I wanted to choke her out.
Perhaps fuck her first. Then choke her out.
“You’ve put me off marriage entirely,” Valentin murmured as I turned another page in the file he had prepared.
“Good,” I said, and gritted my teeth at the credit card statement clipped to the inside cover.
“Thirteen first-class flights,” I said, shaking the piece of paper in the air.
“It was clever,” he murmured.
I glared at him before returning to the destinations.
Various continents. Different sizes of cities. Departure times spread across four days, no two from the same airport. I stared at the list and looked for a pattern the way I looked for patterns in everything.
There was none.
She had bought noise. Thirteen routes going in thirteen directions and no way to know which one she had actually followed, if any.
“Isn’t there anything else your hacker can do?” I said.
“Mrs Dragunov has been resourceful and discreet,” Valentin said, with the careful neutrality of a man selecting his words.“Besides—I thought you said you were well rid of her.”
I turned another page.
“It is always best to know where your enemies are,” I muttered. The credit card charges had stopped a week after the flights were booked. She had gone dark—no digital footprint, no further transactions, nothing. Either she had other funds or she was living carefully. Both options were consistent with what I now knew about her.
I was beginning to suspect both were true.
“It’s been a month.” Valentin stood and straightened his jacket.“The feelers are out. Spartak is following the boy.” He paused at the door.“There isn’t much else to do but wait.”
I said nothing.
He left.
I turned back to the list of thirteen destinations and stared at it until the cities stopped meaning anything.
