Chapter 18
ROLAN
The dining room is warm.
Not the formal dining room, but the smaller one, the family room off the east corridor that Angelina uses for private meals. The table seats six. Tonight, it holds four, with a fifth setting waiting for me at the head.
Elizabeth is already seated. She’s changed into a simple, dark sweater, her hair pulled back in that clip she wears during lessons. Her face is clean. Composed. Not a trace of the woman who was on her knees thirty minutes ago.
She’s good at this. Better than I expected. The ability to compartmentalize, to seal one version of herself behind a door and present another, is a skill I recognize intently.
Which raises the question I don’t want to ask but can’t stop my mind from circling. Is she performing?
Is the warmth she gives Anya calculated, the smiles she distributes to everyone else rehearsed, the care she demonstrates so effortlessly just another mask worn by another woman who learned that the fastest route to power in my house runs through my daughter ?
Katarina did it. Katarina did it so well that I didn’t see the seams until the damage was already structural.
I don’t think Elizabeth is performing.
But the itch is there. Faint, persistent, scratching at the underside of every moment I watch her, whispering the question I despise myself for needing to ask: What if you’re wrong again?
Our eyes meet the moment I enter the room, as if her body has registered my approach before her brain could confirm it, the same way mine registers hers. She looks away immediately. A flicker. The only crack in the composure.
I sit and apologize for being late. The table fills with the sounds of the household settling into an unfamiliar arrangement — Mikhail at my right, Alexei across from him, Anya beside Elizabeth. A perfect family dinner that is not quite a family but is the closest any of us have.
Angelina brings the food. Roasted lamb, potatoes, and a salad that Anya will ignore. Wine for the adults, water for Anya.
It’s been months since we’ve done this. The table was smaller then. Just me, Mikhail, and Anya. Alexei was running an operation in the suburbs. Anya ate in silence. Mikhail made conversation that I half-attended. The meal was an obligation performed and dismissed.
“So,” Mikhail says, pouring wine, “tell me. How are the lessons going, Anya?”
Anya looks at Elizabeth. A quick glance — checking in, the way she does now, confirming that the adult she trusts is present and approving. Elizabeth gives her the smallest nod.
“Good,” Anya says. Then, as if remembering that good is no longer sufficient, “We’re reading Charlotte’s Web . Ellie does the voices. She makes Charlotte sound wise and Templeton sound rude.”
“As he should sound,” Elizabeth says. “Templeton is a menace. ”
“He’s misunderstood,” Anya counters.
The word makes Mikhail’s eyebrows rise. My chest tightens.
I don’t know what Elizabeth did to achieve this. Anya is always so quiet with people, even Mikhail, whom she’s known all her life.
I should be satisfied. This is what I hired her for.
Instead, I’m watching Elizabeth cut Anya’s lamb into small pieces without being asked.
My mouth fills. Not with hunger, but with the memory of her.
I shift in my chair. The erection that had subsided is returning.
I reach for my wine.
The conversation moves on. Anya describes Bernard the sparrow’s latest adventure, involving a swimming lesson and a crow named Helena who is skeptical of water.
Alexei asks questions with the genuine interest of a man who has no experience with children but is trying. Anya answers with an openness that would have been impossible two months ago.
Elizabeth listens, contributes occasionally, and laughs at Anya’s descriptions with a warmth that transforms her face — the guarded expression she wears around me dissolving into a bright and unprotected reaction, entirely focused on the child beside her.
She doesn’t direct that warmth at me. Not once. The smiles go to Anya, to Mikhail, to Alexei. I receive the professional nod. The composed acknowledgment. The careful maintenance of distance that I created, and she’s now enforcing.
The main course is cleared, and the conversation drifts.
“My niece is growing up too fast,” Mikhail says to Alexei, gesturing at Anya with his wine glass. A casual comment, but then his eyes flicker.
Elizabeth’s gaze lifts from her plate. “Niece? ”
The table adjusts. Alexei’s jaw tightens a fraction. Mikhail’s posture shifts.
I could redirect. Change the subject. The instinct to control information is reflexive. Every enemy I’ve ever had has known that the fastest way to destroy a man like me is through the people he loves.
But Elizabeth is looking at Mikhail with genuine curiosity.
“Mikhail is my uncle,” I say. “My father’s brother. He’s been in the business longer than I have.”
I watch Elizabeth process the information.
Mikhail isn’t just an advisor. He’s blood.
“I had no idea,” she says, looking at Mikhail softer than before.
Mikhail shrugs. “Rolan prefers to keep personal relationships private. An old habit.”
“A necessary one,” I correct.
Elizabeth nods, accepting the response, then turns to Alexei. “And you, Alexei? What’s your role?”
Alexei handles it well. He always does, with the practiced ease of a man who’s been answering questions about his employment for years.
“Operations,” he says. “I manage the logistical side of Rolan’s business. I like to think of myself as his right hand, though he’d never admit it.”
He grins.
“And Dmitri?” she asks. “Your driver. What’s his deal? I’ve been trying to have a conversation with him for six weeks, and the longest response I’ve gotten is a grunt.”
The question is light. Casual. The table laughs. Mikhail lets out a quiet chuckle, Alexei opens a grin, but the back of my neck prickles with an irritation I don’t immediately understand.
Why does she want to know about Dmitri?
The question is irrational. She’s making conversation, asking about a member of the household she interacts with daily. A question anyone would ask.
But the irritation is there, territorial. The same instinct that fired when Marku spoke about her at the dinner, the animal response to someone else occupying space near what I’ve decided is mine.
She’s an employee. A woman I’ve put my fingers inside, who’s had my cock in her mouth, and who owes me nothing beyond her contracted duties.
The possessiveness is irrational.
“That’s just Dmitri,” Alexei says. “The man communicates exclusively through monosyllables and disapproval. We’ve been trying to crack him for years.”
“I asked him about his favorite food once,” Elizabeth says. “He looked at me like I’d threatened his family.”
The table laughs again.
I watch. I drink my wine. I let the evening exist as what it is. The closest thing to normal that this house has produced in years.
Dessert arrives, a chocolate tart, dense and rich, that Anya attacks with the focused enthusiasm of a child who has been waiting for this moment since the meal began.
The conversation continues. Light. Easy.
Mikhail tells a story about a supplier who mixed up a shipment — sanitized, civilian-safe, a logistics error, when it is actually about three hundred kilos of product arriving at the wrong warehouse. Alexei adds embellishments.
Elizabeth listens and engages. When Anya asks for hot chocolate after dessert, Elizabeth shakes her head.
“Not tonight, sweetheart. You’ve had enough sugar with the tart.”
Anya’s face cycles through the stages — protest, negotiation, acceptance. “But?— ”
“I’ll make you an extra special one tomorrow. With the good chocolate. Deal?”
Anya considers, weighing the idea, and accepts it with the gravity of a diplomat conceding a minor point. “Deal.”
She’s not afraid to say no to the people she likes. Interesting.
The evening ends. Anya is taken upstairs by Elizabeth, who promises the morning chocolate and a new chapter of Charlotte’s Web . Mikhail clears his throat. Alexei straightens in his chair. The domestic performance is over. The professional one begins.
We move toward the office.
“Most of the hotels are done,” Alexei says, settling into the leather chair across from my desk. He places a tablet on the surface between us. “Nine properties hit simultaneously, two more within the hour. The remaining four sustained enough damage to render them nonoperational for months.”
“Casualties?”
“Minimal on our side. Three injuries, none critical. His people weren’t expecting coordinated strikes. Most of the buildings were lightly staffed at that hour.”
“And his laundering pipeline?”
“Severed.” Alexei allows himself the faintest trace of satisfaction.
“Conservative estimates put his revenue loss at several million per month. The cash processing infrastructure alone will take him the better part of a year to rebuild, and that’s assuming he can secure new locations without us flagging them. ”
I lean back. The news should feel like progress, and strategically, it is. But I’ve known men like Dushku long enough to understand that crippling his wallet won’t cripple his resolve. If anything, it will sharpen it.
“His response?” I ask.
Alexei and Mikhail exchange a glance.
“That’s the concern,” Mikhail says. He speaks from the corner where he stands, arms folded. “We’ve sent three separate proposals through back channels since the strikes. All rejected. He’s not interested in terms.”
“He wants this war,” Alexei adds. Quieter now. “This just made it worse. We destroyed his revenue, yes. But we also humiliated him. Nine buildings in one night. That’s not a military operation, that’s a statement. And Dushku doesn’t absorb statements. He answers them.”
“Marku wants blood. Dushku won’t stop until he gets his revenge,” Mikhail says. The name lands in the room with its full weight.
The killing wasn’t a professional insult. It was a blood offense. Albanian blood codes are old and rigid. He won’t negotiate.
“So, we’ve cut off his money and made him angrier,” I say.
“Essentially,” Mikhail replies.
“Good.” I reach for the vodka in the bottom drawer. Pour one glass. “An angry man with a shrinking bankroll makes mistakes. A funded, patient Dushku is dangerous. A broke, furious Dushku is predictable.”
“Or desperate,” Alexei counters. “Desperate men stop following rules. He hit a civilian target on Halsted when he still had resources. Without them?—”
“Then we fortify everything worth protecting and make the cost of every incursion higher than the last.” I set the glass on the table.
“He wants to bleed for this? Fine. We make every drop expensive. We make it unsustainable. And when his people start calculating whether loyalty to a dead man is worth what it’s costing them — that’s when the cracks appear. ”
Mikhail unfolds his arms. “And if the cracks don’t appear?”
“They always do.” I hold his gaze. “Blood codes hold families together. They don’t hold mercenaries. And the Albanians he called in from New York aren’t family. They’re contractors. They want money. When the flow stops, they go home. ”
Silence. Alexei nods slowly. Mikhail absorbs the logic, turns it over, finds no flaw he’s willing to voice.
“One other matter,” I say. “Miss Calloway has been granted leave this Sunday. She’ll be off the property for the day.”
The room shifts. Alexei’s eyebrows rise. Mikhail’s arms refold.
“You’re letting her out,” Alexei says. Not a question.
“She’ll be accompanied.”
“By whom?”
“By me.”
Silence.
“Rolan.” Mikhail’s voice is careful. Measured. “Dushku has been watching the estate. Leaving the perimeter with a civilian?—”
“She won’t be leaving as a civilian. She’ll be leaving with me, in an armored vehicle, with a security detail.”
“Why not send her with a driver and two guards? If it’s a day off?—”
“It’s not a day off.”
Another silence. Alexei looks at Mikhail, who looks at me.
“Why are you going personally?” Alexei asks.
“That’s my concern.”
“With respect, Rolan, if you’re leaving the property during an active conflict with the head of the Albanian faction, it’s all of our concern. You’re the primary target. Leaving cover to escort a tutor on a Sunday outing?—”
“Four men,” I order. “Armed. The armored Escalade. Standard protocol. I want the details ready by eight Sunday morning.”
Alexei opens his mouth to argue, then closes it. He reads my expression correctly.
“I’ll arrange it,” he concedes.
Mikhail hasn’t moved from his corner.
“Anything else?” I ask .
They shake their heads, stand, and leave.
The office is quiet. I sit behind my desk and think about Sunday.
She asked to leave. A personal matter, she said. The words careful, the eyes guarded. I didn’t ask.
But I know. I’ve read the file.
Landon Webb.
She’s going to see him.
The absolute fucking bastard.
He thinks he owns her? She thinks her debt belongs to him?
No.
She’s mine.
And I’ll make that crystal fucking clear.