“He’s carrying her debt as a personal asset,” I note.
Alexei nods. “Separate from the syndicate. Which means it’s not just business.”
“It’s leverage.”
“Control. She’s the highest value asset in his portfolio. If he sells the debt to the syndicate, he loses direct access to her. He’s keeping her close.”
Keeping her close.
It’s a leash.
A possessiveness burns in the pit of my gut. I try to blow it out, unsuccessfully.
“Is he violent?”
“The enforcement teams are. Him, personally — the file suggests psychological manipulation rather than physical force. But the line between those things gets thin with men like this.”
I know that line. I’ve built operations on it.
“Continue monitoring,” I order. “If Webb’s networkintersects with any of our active operations — particularly the Albanian situation — I want to know immediately.”
Alexei doesn’t need to hear more. He takes the file and leaves.
I absorb what I’ve learned. She works in my house now, cares for my daughter, sleeps twelve doors from my office, and she’s tethered to a predator who operates in the same shadowy world I do.
I could clear the debt. After all, half a million is nothing, a rounding error in my quarterly accounts. One phone call. One transfer. Done.
But I don’t make the call.
The debt keeps her here. If I clear it, she has options. Options mean she could leave, and if she leaves, Anya…
I stop the thought and open the security feed on the sunroom.
Elizabeth and Anya are painting, with watercolor this time. The light from the windows washes over her face. The hazel in her eyes catches the sun. Her mouth is moving in what I’m certain is praise, and my daughter is sitting three feet away from her.
I close the feed.
And open it twelve minutes later.
Close it.
Open it.
This has to stop.
Thursday.
The Albanian situation escalates.
Besnik Dushku, the head of the Albanian faction that’s been pushing into our territory, makes a move. Not violent.
He files a competing bid through a shell company for a citycontract we’ve already secured, undercutting ours by twelve percent. The alderman we own calls in a panic — voice cracking, breath short, realizing that the people who bought him might not be the most dangerous in the room anymore.
This is Dushku’s strategy. He doesn’t fight in the streets. He fights in boardrooms, permitting offices, and city council chambers. He wears suits that cost more than some of my soldiers make in a month. He speaks four languages and smiles when he threatens you. He’s the type of enemy I respect and can’t afford to underestimate.
“We respond,” I tell Alexei during our morning briefing. “But not yet. First, I want Yuri to map every shell company Dushku’s operating through. Every bid. Every contract. Every city official he’s touched. When we move, I want to dismantle his infrastructure, not just his latest play.”
“And if he escalates before we’re ready?”
