Three load-bearing points.
“Casualties?” I ask.
“Two of ours at Kedzie. The rest got out.” His jaw sets. “He’s fighting back, targeting infrastructure. Revenue lines. Supply chains. He’s trying to collapse the foundation.”
I study the map. The three sites, the angles of approach, the timing of the strikes — I search for the pattern underneath it all.
Dushku is methodical. I’ve always recognized this about him; it’s what elevates him from a manageable nuisance to a genuine threat.
But this level of precision requires more than methodology. It requires intelligence.
Someone is feeding him information.
A leak. Someone inside my operation is talking.
“Where is Dushku now?” I ask.
“That’s the part you’re not going to like.” Alexei zooms into the Pilsen marker. “He’s at the distribution hub.”
He’s staging from my own property. The realization fills me with pure, clarifying rage.
“Who’s available?”
“Everyone. All teams, all sites accounted for and standing by.”
I look at the map one final time. The red markers. The breach points. The single dot in Pilsen where a man who has been dismantling my empire piece by piece is sitting inside a building with my name on the deed.
The sound of Elizabeth’s tears echoes somewhere behind my thoughts.
I force myself to push it aside.
“Let’s go.”
33
ELLIE
A mistake.
The word lives in my chest now.
It’s become physical, a bruise that I press against involuntarily twenty times a day, each time producing the same dull, spreading ache.
I’ve cried until there’s nothing left and then found more.
He doesn’t come back.
One day. Two. I count them as if doing so would make time feel manageable — if I can get to the next number, the one after it will be easier. It isn’t.
On the third night I decide, with great conviction, to sleep in my own room. I stand in the doorway of my bedroom and tell myself,This is yours. This has always been yours. You were here before him, and you’ll be fine without him.I believe it completely. So, I get in bed, turn off the light, and lie in the dark, staring at the ceiling for four hours.
Then I go back to our room.
Hisroom.
I tell myself it’s because his mattress is better. Not that I’vegrown accustomed to his breathing, or the scent that lingers after him, or anything else.
I bury my face in his pillow and sleep until six and wake up feeling hollow.
