“No. Everything has been running smoothly in my absence.” I lean back in my chair once more. “Make sure the additional security is in place by tonight. I don’t want any surprises.”
Andrei nods and stands to leave, but he pauses at the door. “Should I be concerned about the timing? Luca’s return coinciding with your trip to Zurich?”
The question is valid. Luca has always been opportunistic, preferring to strike when his enemies are distracted or vulnerable. My absence from San Diego would have been the perfect time to establish whatever foothold he’s been planning.
“It’s possible, but if he wanted to move against the estate directly, he would have done it while I was gone. This feels like something else.”
“What kind of something else?”
I hesitate before shrugging. “I intend to find out.”
After he leaves, I try to focus on the reports piling up on my desk. Shipping manifests from Rotterdam, financial statements from three different shell companies, and intelligence briefs on competitors and potential threats fill my computer screen. This paperwork usually absorbs me completely, demanding the full attention that has made me successful in industries where distraction equals death.
Today, I can’t concentrate on any of it. My mind keeps drifting to the woman working somewhere in my house.
What would have happened if I’d told her the truth that night? What if I’d given her my real name and found a way to see her again instead of disappearing like a coward who couldn’t handle the complications of an actual relationship?
The questions eat at me as I force myself to review the shipping contracts from Zurich, but the numbers blur together on the screen. All I can think about is the way she looked at me this morning, polite and professional and completely devoid of the warmth I remember from our night together.
It’s what I wanted when I gave her a false name and walked away without looking back. So, why does her indifference feel like punishment?
Before I can still the impulse, I open the security feed from the gallery outside my study. Danielle is there, moving along the wall, dusting the frames that hold various photographs and awards from my legitimate business ventures.
She pauses at one particular frame, and I lean forward to see which one has caught her attention. It’s an old photograph and one of the few personal items I keep in the public areas of the house. I’m maybe six years old, standing between my parentsin front of our modest home in Moscow. My father’s hand rests on my shoulder, and my mother is smiling at the camera with the kind of joy that existed before the world taught us both how dangerous happiness could be.
Danielle stares at the photo for a long moment, and she brushes her fingertips over the frame with something that looks like recognition. Her posture changes, becomes more tense, and she glances around as if checking to make sure she’s alone. Then she moves on, but I can see the way her movements have become more hurried and less methodical.
Something about that photograph affected her, but what could a picture of me as a child possibly mean to her? I continue watching her work, noting the careful way she handles each item and the professional distance she maintains even when cleaning the most personal aspects of my life. She’s even more beautiful than I remembered and more poised despite the wariness I can sense in her posture.
For the first time in years, my mind isn’t on business or blood. It’s on the woman moving through my house like she belongs there, touching pieces of my history with hands I remember all too well.
My phone chimes with a routine notification from the estate’s security system, distracting me, and I hastily turn off the security feed, feeling like a guilty schoolboy caught doing something awful.
I force myself to focus on the shipping contracts from Zurich, though the numbers blur together on the screen. The afternoon passes slowly as I work through accumulated correspondence and review financial reports from my various enterprises. Many are legitimate businesses that fund my public persona, each onecarefully insulated from the criminal operations that built them. Focusing on them makes me think about the threat Luka poses, since he knows some of the pressure points between legitimate andbratvabusiness.
If he’s planning to target me directly, everyone in this house becomes a potential casualty. Everyone who works for me, lives near me, or has any connection to my operations becomes a risk he might be willing to take.
Including her.
I reach for my phone to call Andrei about additional security measures, but then I stop. Danielle chose to work here knowing nothing about who I really am or what kind of danger that might entail. She took the job because she needed it, not because she wanted to be part of my world, and she doesn’t want to live under the microcosm of constant security.
The last thing she deserves is to be caught in the crossfire of a war that started years before she walked through my door, but as I sit in my office, listening to the sound of her movements in the hallway outside, I realize it may already be too late for that. By approving her application, by allowing her into my house, I’ve already made her part of this.
3
Danielle
“Mama, can we get ice cream after dinner?”
Leo’s question floats from the backseat as I navigate the afternoon traffic from his preschool to our Pacific Beach apartment. Today was his second day this week, and he’s chattering about the art project they made with pasta shells and glitter, his excitement infectious despite the weight pressing down on my chest.
“We’ll see, baby. Let’s get home first.”
The photograph haunts me. Yesterday, while dusting the gallery outside Radmir’s office, I paused at a family portrait tucked between his business awards and certificates. The young boy, maybe six years old, standing between his parents with dark hair and storm-colored eyes looked heartbreakingly familiar.
The resemblance to Leo was so striking it made my hands shake. Young Radmir had the same bone structure, same serious expression, and same way of tilting his head slightly when hewas thinking. If I had any doubts about Leo’s paternity, that photograph erased them completely. Not that I did, of course.
“Look, Mama. I drew you a picture of our apartment.”
