“How would you know?”
“I’ve been where you are. I understand what it feels like to lose the only parent who ever loved you to violence you couldn’t prevent.”
She turns to look at me then, and I see something shift in her expression. For the first time since Claude’s death, she’s seeing me as something other than the source of her pain. “Your mother.”
“My mother.” I keep my eyes on the road, but I can feel her gaze on me. “Grief is complicated, Zita. It makes you want to blame someone, to direct all that rage at a target you can actually reach. I spent years hating everyone except the man who actually pulled the trigger.”
“I don’t blame you for Papa’s death.” Her voice is quiet but steady. “I blame myself for not seeing it coming, for not being smart enough to anticipate their move, and for not protecting him the way he tried to protect me.”
The admission reveals what’s been eating at her since the funeral. Not anger at me, but guilt over her perceived failure to save her father. I understand that particular form of self-destruction because I’ve lived with it myself.
“You couldn’t have known they’d target him directly.” I risk reaching for her hand, relieved when she doesn’t pull away. “Claude knew the risks when he aligned himself with our family. He chose to protect you that day in his office. He died because the Federoffs are animals who kill innocent people to send messages.” I bring her hand to my lips, pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles. “Don’t take responsibility for their choices.”
“Someone has to take responsibility.” She leans back against the headrest, closing her eyes. “Someone has to carry what happened, and you’re already carrying enough.”
The insight into how she’s been processing her grief cuts through me. She’s been protecting me from her pain, trying to shoulder the blame alone instead of letting me help her carry it. The partnership we’ve built has become so important to her that she’d rather destroy herself than burden me with her struggle.
“You don’t have to protect me from your grief.” I squeeze her hand gently. “We’re supposed to handle these things as a team, remember?”
“I remember.” Zita opens her eyes to look at me. “I just don’t know how to let you help when you’re dealing with your own guilt about not keeping us safe.”
“We stop trying to manage everything alone and start trusting each other with the difficult parts.”
She nods but returns to silence, leaving me unsure if I got through to her as I keep driving to the cabin. It sits on forty acres of dense forest, with a private lake that reflects the stars like scattered diamonds across its surface. The structure is smaller than I remembered from our last visit, with two bedrooms, akitchen, and a living area dominated by a stone fireplace that provides both heat and light.
“This is it?” Zita asks as we step inside, her voice echoing slightly in the empty space.
“It’s defensible, isolated, and off the grid except for satellite communications.” I flip switches, bringing lights and heat online while my men conduct a security sweep of the surrounding area. “No one knows this place exists except people I trust with my life.”
“People you trusted with your life thought Papa was safe at his office too.”
The accusation hits its mark because it’s true. Every security protocol I put in place failed to protect her father. Every precaution I took wasn’t enough to prevent the Federoffs from reaching us when it mattered most.
“You’re right. Every system can be compromised, and every precaution can fail.” I turn to face her fully. “This place is different because it has no staff, no regular schedules, and no patterns for them to learn and exploit. It’s just us and a few guards who’ve proven their loyalty over years of service.”
Zita moves to the window that overlooks the lake, her reflection ghostlike in the dark glass. “How long do we stay here?”
“As long as it takes to end this forever.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer I can give you right now.” I join her at the window, close enough to catch her scent but careful not to crowd her while she’s processing everything. “I’m working on a solution, but these things take time to arrange properly.”
“What kind of solution?”
“The permanent kind.”
She processes this, and I see the moment she understands what I’m really saying. Her reflection in the window shows pleasure rather than shock. “You’re planning to kill them all.”
“Every last one. Avgar, his lieutenants, his soldiers, his suppliers, and his financiers. Everyone who had a hand in your father’s death gets eliminated.” I touch her shoulder. “I’m going to dismantle his entire organization piece by piece until there’s nothing left but memories and obituaries.”
“What happens after that? We go back to the mansion and pretend this never happened? We resume building our life together like Papa wasn’t murdered because of our alliance?”
The questions are fair, and I don’t have easy answers for any of them. How do you rebuild a relationship when grief has changed one of the people involved? How do you move forward when the foundation you built together is stained with blood?
I admit my uncertainty rather than offering false reassurance. “I don’t know what happens after. I’ve never been in this situation before.”
“What situation is that?”
