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“Probably both.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“I’m not Riley. I don’t typically comfort people. Don’t make a thing of it. It’s weird.”

A laugh escaped me despite myself.

Sloane smiled. “Listen, love doesn’t erase your right to set boundaries, Alessia. Your father can love you and do it badly. You get to decide what he has to change if he wants access to you.”

“That sounds like sage advice.”

“It was. I should’ve charged extra for that,” she said with a wink.

* * *

By the time Sergei and I returned to the townhouse, the first Bellandi records had already arrived through Kit’s secure system. Hundreds of files waited on the dining-room screen—port leases, board minutes, shipping summaries, route agreements, and spreadsheets containing enough numbers to make most people develop a sudden interest in comas.

Sergei placed coffee beside me and took the chair to my right.

“You negotiated well,” he said.

“I threatened my father with independent counsel. I think that means I’m officially an adult.”

His hand moved beneath my chin, tilting my face toward him.

“You were very good.”

Heat unfurled low in my stomach.

“Good?” I asked.

His green eyes darkened.

“Very.”

Then he released me and turned toward the screen as though he hadn’t just rearranged my entire nervous system with one word.

Bastard.

CHAPTER 15

Sergei

Shortly after midnight, Alessia found the first original record connecting Mikhail Orlov to Yuri Volkov before the bombing that killed my parents. It was a temporary receiving authorization filed under one of Sokolov’s aliases and dated six days before my parents died.

I called Ivan, and he matched it to the payment he and Kit had already traced from an Orlov-controlled company into a Volkov account. One record showed Sokolov opening the payment channel. The other showed Mikhail’s money reaching Yuri.

He sent both to the federal prosecutor. By four in the morning, the interview had been approved. Shortly after sunrise, Ivan and I were inside the detention facility.

The federal detention facility outside Boston had concrete walls, narrow windows, and steel doors painted the same dead gray as the corridors. Mikhail Orlov had spent decades sending other men into places like it. Now two guards led him into an interview room wearing prison orange and soft-soled shoes. Federal custody had taken his tailored suits, his expensive watch, his armed men, and the illusion that every door would open for him. He entered the room and took a seat across from Ivan and me.

Alessia waited in the secured observation room next door.

The federal attorney would not allow her into the interview because she was neither counsel nor a party to the criminal proceeding, but they’d permitted her to watch through the darkened glass.

Mikhail looked toward the mirror, then from Ivan to me.

“The analyst and the shield,” he said. “I’ve been wondering which of the Morozov sons would finally come asking why their parents died.”