Page 51 of Marrying the Pakhan

The weight of what I stand to lose just doubled, quietly, completely, in the space of one ordinary evening on my own couch.

I think about the folder still sitting in my study, the photographs, the timeline, everything Dimitri’s spent weeks building while I’ve spent those same weeks convincing myself this could stay contained a while longer.

I lie awake a long while, Harper’s breathing steady against my chest, thinking about Pavel Ivanov and everything I still haven’t told her, and for the first time since that courtroom, the silence I’ve been protecting her with starts to feel less like protection and more like a debt I’m going to have to pay eventually, one way or another.

Not tonight. Tonight is hers, the child’s, and mine, untouched by anything else.

But soon. I can feel it coming, the way you feel weather change before the sky actually confirms it. Soon I’ll have to choose between the man who protects by staying silent and the man who protects by finally telling the truth, and I already suspect which version of me is going to lose that argument.

24

VIKTOR

I wake with a clarity I haven’t had in weeks, the kind that used to come easily before Pavel Ivanov reentered my life, the kind that comes from finally deciding on a course of action.

Harper’s still asleep beside me, one hand curled against her stomach even unconscious, and I lie there a moment longer than necessary, watching her, before I get up and start making calls.

Nothing about today needs to look frantic. Panic invites mistakes, and mistakes are exactly what a man like Pavel would be counting on if he ever managed to rattle me. Whatever I do from here forward gets done the way I’ve built this entire business, deliberate, controlled, three steps ahead of anyone watching.

I call the head of my security detail first, before coffee, before anything else.

“I want cameras on every access point to the property by the end of the week. Not obvious ones, integrated into the landscaping, the fixtures, nothing that reads as new to anyone watching from outside.”

“We can have a team here by this afternoon.”

“Good. I also want the safe room in the basement fully stocked and tested. Communications, medical supplies, enough for several days if it ever comes to that. I want my wife and daughter to know exactly where it is and exactly how to get there without needing instructions in the moment.”

“Understood. Anything else?”

“Rotate the routine. School pickup, grocery runs, anything predictable. I don’t want a pattern anyone can study and exploit.”

He confirms everything without asking why, which is one of the reasons I pay him what I do, and I hang up already moving to the next call, Dimitri, who picks up on the first ring like he’s been waiting for it.

“You’re up early,” he says.

“I’ve made some decisions.”

“About Harper?”

“About the house. I’m not telling her yet. But I’m done reacting to whatever Pavel does next. I want us building toward something instead.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I want everything you’ve gathered on him laid out properly, patterns, associates, anywhere he might actually be vulnerable instead of just watching us from a distance forever. If he wants a war, I’d rather fight it on ground I choose.”

Dimitri’s quiet a moment, and I can practically hear him recalibrating, the shift from defense to something closer to offense clearly not what he expected from me this early in the morning. “That’s a significant shift.”

“She’s pregnant, Dimitri. The stakes doubled overnight. I’m not spending the next several months just watching cars idle outside my house and hoping we catch a break before he decides to stop being patient.”

His reaction to the news is unreadable. “I’ll have everything organized by this afternoon. We can go through it together, figure out where the actual leverage is.”

“Good. Come by after Ginger’s at school. I don’t want this conversation happening anywhere near either of them.”

He agrees, and I end the call feeling steadier than I have in weeks, the particular calm that comes from finally choosing a direction instead of drifting reactive through someone else’s timeline.

The calm doesn’t last past breakfast.

Harper finds me in the kitchen an hour later, Ginger already off to school, security detail rotating through their new positions with quiet efficiency, exactly as I requested, nothing dramatic, nothing that would alarm anyone watching from outside.