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Not because I like her fear—her fear is the one part of this that bothers me—but because in thirty days I intend for her to learn that I am a man of my word and schedule, and the lesson begins now.
Sixty minutes.
Let’s see how long it takes her to jump into action.
On the monitor, she stands statue-still in her kitchen, phone in hand, staring at nothing.
Then the glass goes down on the marble with a crack that nearly breaks it, and she’s dialing.
I touch the audio feed for the interior because I have no intention of missing this.
“Kolya.” She doesn’t wait for hello. Stress radiates off her as she drums her fingers on the table. “He called. Get Maksim. Get Leo. Now—and Cillian if he’s still there. Put me on speaker.”
It takes ninety seconds to assemble the most dangerous conference call in New York. I pour two fingers of Barolo and listen to the kings of three families crowd around a phone for her.
She reports like a surgeon dictating an operative note.
Her voice is steady, and you would never know how she truly feels.
Only I, watching her free hand clench and release against her thigh, off-rhythm, over and over, know how angry and scared she is. Magnificent. She is magnificent, and they can’t even see it.
Nikolai detonates first, as expected. “Absolutely not,” he roars. “Out of the question.” The phone speaker crackles with the explosion of his anger.
He’ll have men at her door in ten minutes. She’s coming to the estate. The negotiation happens through intermediaries or not at all.
“There are no intermediaries, Kolya. You heard the terms. Me, alone, or nothing,” my angel says coolly.
Maksim’s voice comes on next and out of the two brothers, Maksim Sokolov is the more physically imposing one.
He asks about my voice, accent, background noise, and word choice.
He’s building a profile of me from her answers, and I salute him with the wine because it’s exactly the right move and it will get him exactly nowhere.
Cillian Brennan wants to discuss the car, intercept points, and a tail rotation the driver won’t spot.
I roll my eyes.
They’re all amateurs at this, even if they think they’re professionals.
Not one of them is able to do a single thing about the next hour, because I’ve built it so the only door out of this leads to me.
Then another voice joins and this one makes me stiffen.
Leo Santoro, father of the year, sounds like a man who has been screaming or crying or both.
“Katerina,” he breathes her name, and the line goes still. “Is she alive? Did he—do you believe him? That she’s safe?”
My angel closes her eyes, lashes pressing down and gathering herself before she says, “He gave me some details, Leo. He said they got her a stuffed puppy and she named it Pancake.”
The sound Leo makes is a half-laugh, half-sob. “Pancake?” He breathes. “She—she has a stuffed rabbit named Pancake. It’s sitting on her bed right now. Oh, Sera…”
Got him. Now he knows his daughter is alive. That detail was a gift and I gave it to Katerina for a reason.
“He’s getting me proof of life within the hour,” Katerina continues, her eyes glassy. “And yes, God help me, I believed him. Whatever he is, hurting her isn’t…it isn’t what this is.”
“Then what is it?” Nikolai snaps savagely. “Thirty days, alone, with a man who tore a hole through Maksim’s security like wet paper—Katya, think. This was never about Seraphina. This was always about you. The child is bait. He did all of it to get to you.”
Clever, clever Nikolai. Two years too late.
