The exchange is professional, clinical. No explicit discussion of violence or elimination. Just acknowledgment that Ethan had become a problem requiring handling.
I flip to the next email, dated five days later.
LS: Clarke rejected final offer. Threatened to publish within the week. We’re moving forward with containment protocol. Wanted you aware given peripheral overlap with Rudenko interests.
FR: Appreciated. Sartore territory, Sartore decision. We won’t interfere.
My stomach tightens. This is more than just allowing Ethan to die. He knewweeksbeforehand, that his death was imminent.
The next document is worse.
It’s an internal memo Felix wrote to his financial handlers, dated two days before Ethan’s death. The subject line reads:Market Repositioning Opportunities—Clarke Investigation Termination.
I force myself to read it slowly, absorbing every word.
If Sartore proceeds with Clarke containment as indicated, several contracts currently blocked by his pending exposé will become available for acquisition. Specifically: Port logistics oversight for Newark operations, maritime freight consulting for three senators whose campaigns Clarke was investigating, and offshore routing management previously held by firms he’d flagged for federal review.
Recommend we position for rapid absorption of these contracts pending Clarke’s investigation termination. Estimated value: $12-15M annually across combined operations. No direct involvement required—simply capitalize on market gap created by Sartore resolution.
The language is careful, coded in business terminology that never explicitly mentions murder. The meaning is unmistakable. Felix calculated that Ethan’s death would create opportunities for Rudenko expansion. He didn’t order the killing, didn’t participate directly, but he recognized the advantage and positioned to benefit from it.
My brother died, and Felix absorbed the contracts his investigation had threatened.
I sit at his desk for a long time, staring at the memo until the words blur together. The betrayal feels different than if he’d simply admitted letting Ethan die. This is worse. This is Felix recognizing that my brother’s murder would strengthen his position and deliberately planning to profit from it.
He didn’t pull the trigger. He cleared obstacles so the shooter had a clean line of sight, then stepped in to collect what the body left behind.
The folder contains more emails, more projections, more clinical discussions of how to navigate the fallout from Ethan’s death in ways that maximized Rudenko advantage. I read through all of it with numb detachment, cataloging evidence of exactly how calculated Felix’s decision to stay uninvolved had been.
By the time I finish, it’s past two in the afternoon. My hands have stopped shaking. The hollow feeling in my chest has expanded into something cold and sharp.
I print copies of the most damning emails—the ones where Felix acknowledges Sartore’s timeline, the memo about market repositioning, the follow-up communications confirming contract absorption.
The printer hums quietly, spitting out pages that document my husband’s complicity in my brother’s death more thoroughly than anything I found in Ethan’s encrypted drives.
I return the original folder to the filing cabinet, lock it carefully, and replace the keys exactly where I found them. Then I take the printed copies and leave the office, closing the door behind me.
Chapter Nineteen - Felix
The port negotiation runs three hours longer than scheduled, stretched thin by posturing and territorial displays that accomplish nothing except wasting time I don’t have. By the time I’m back in the SUV heading toward the estate, it’s past six and the sun is setting across fields that blur into darkness beyond the highway.
Oleg drives in silence, aware that I’m not in the mood for conversation. My mind cycles through the same calculations I’ve been running for days—Sartore pressure points, senator alignments, shipment rerouting that costs more than projected, the expanding web of complications that all trace back to Diana’s protection.
It’s worth it, I remind myself. Every lost contract, every strained alliance, every resource diverted from routine operations—all of it justified by keeping her alive.
The rational part of my brain questions that logic. The rest of me doesn’t care.
We exit the highway onto rural roads that wind through farmland and scattered woods. Oleg slows for a sharp curve, and something catches my eye near the shoulder—a flash of white against dark asphalt.
“Stop,” I say.
Oleg pulls over smoothly, hazards flashing. “What’s the problem?”
“Wait here.”
I step out into cold evening air that smells like rain and distant wood smoke. The shoulder is narrow, gravel crunching beneath my shoes as I walk back toward what caught my attention.
A single white wildflower grows through a crack in the pavement, petals intact despite the location’s hostility to life. It’s small, unimpressive, the kind of thing I’d normally walk past without noticing.
