Chapter 19 #2
I climb the stairs to Mila's room. She's still asleep, dark hair spread across her pillow, one arm wrapped around that stuffed wolf Sergei won her at a carnival. She looks peaceful. Innocent. Completely unaware that someone tried to kill her twenty-four hours ago.
That someone is still listening.
I sink into the chair beside her bed, watching her breathe. Each inhale feels like a miracle now. Each exhale feels like borrowed time.
Three months ago, I was picking out shoes for charity galas. Dodging my mother's phone calls. Living a life so insulated from violence that the worst thing I could imagine was a bad review in the society pages.
Now I'm sitting in a bugged house, watching a poisoned child sleep, married to a killer, and planning the destruction of my own family.
How did I get here?
The answer is simple: I walked. Step by step, choice by choice, from the woman I was to the woman I'm becoming. Each decision leading to the next—propose to Sergei, learn to shoot, help him hide bodies, protect Mila at all costs.
I didn't fall into this life.
I chose it.
And I'd choose it again. Every single time.
Mila stirs, those hazel-green eyes fluttering open. She sees me and smiles, sleep-soft and trusting.
"Izzy?" Her voice is scratchy. "What time is it?"
"Early. How do you feel?"
She considers the question seriously, the way children do when they're learning that bodies can betray them. "Okay. My stomach doesn't hurt anymore."
"Good. That's really good, sweetheart."
"Why are you watching me sleep? That's weird."
A laugh escapes me, unexpected and almost painful. "Because I love you. And sometimes when you love someone, you just want to make sure they're okay."
She processes this, then nods like it makes perfect sense. "Papa does that, too. He checks on me at night when he thinks I'm asleep."
Of course he does. The Wolf prowling the halls, guarding his pack.
"Hey, Mila?" I smooth her hair back from her forehead. "How would you feel about a little vacation? A beach house in the Hamptons. Just you, me, and your papa."
Her eyes light up. "Really? With the ocean?"
"With the ocean. And probably a lot of puzzles. Maybe some burnt cookies, if you help me bake."
"I always help you bake."
"I know. That's why they're always burnt."
She giggles, and the sound stitches something together in my chest that I didn't know was torn.
"When do we leave?" she asks.
"Today. As soon as you're packed."
"Today?" She sits up, suddenly energetic despite yesterday's ordeal. "Can I bring my books? And the puzzle Papa started? And—"
"Bring whatever you want, sweetheart. We'll have plenty of room."
She's out of bed and pulling open drawers before I finish the sentence, chattering about which stuffed animals are essential and which can stay behind. Normal kid behavior. Resilient kid behavior.
She has no idea why we're really leaving.
I hope she never has to know.
Downstairs, the smell of pancakes drifts up the stairs. Sergei playing his part, creating the illusion of a normal morning while bugs transmit our performance to a man who poisoned our daughter.
I pull Dad's lighter from my pocket. The metal's warm from resting against my body, familiar and grounding.
Click snap
The flame catches this time. Small and defiant in the morning light.
Matthew Ashford thought he could reach into our home. Thought he could poison our child and hide behind surveillance. Thought he could break us apart with fear.
He's wrong.
He just taught us exactly how far he's willing to go.
Now we know, too.
And when The Wolf and his wife come for him—when we burn down everything he's built and watch him choke on the ashes—he'll realize too late that the message he sent was received.
Just not the way he intended.
The flame flickers as Mila thunders down the stairs, backpack—the clean spare one, not the bugged one—bouncing on her shoulders.
"Papa made pancakes with chocolate chips, even though it's not Saturday!"
"Special occasion," Sergei calls from the kitchen. "Beach vacation breakfast."
I close the lighter, slipping it back into my pocket. The bug from her backpack sits beside it, dead weight and evidence.
We'll leave it here when we go. Let Matthew listen to empty rooms. Let him wonder where we've gone, what we're planning, when the strike will come.
Let him learn what it feels like to wait for violence he can't see coming.
In the kitchen, Mila's already at the table, drowning her pancakes in syrup while Sergei watches with that soft expression he reserves only for her. He catches my eye across the room.
Ready? his gaze asks.
Ready, mine answers.
We eat breakfast like a normal family. Chat about the beach house, about sandcastles and seashells, and whether the ocean will be too cold for swimming. Mila does most of the talking, oblivious to the currents running beneath the surface.
By noon, we're packed. Sergei loads the SUV while I do one final sweep of the house—making sure we've left nothing essential behind, except the things we want Matthew to find. The bugs stay where they are. Silent witnesses to empty rooms.
I pause at the door, looking back at the house that was supposed to be safe. The house where I learned to shoot, where I helped with homework, where I fell in love with a dangerous man and his dangerous daughter.
It's compromised now. Tainted by Matthew's reach.
But not destroyed.
We'll come back. When this is over. When Matthew's in the ground or behind bars, and our family can breathe without looking over our shoulders.
We'll come back and make it ours again.
"Izzy?" Mila's voice from the car. "Are you coming?"
"Yeah, sweetheart." I pull the door closed, locking it with deliberate finality. "I'm coming."
The drive to the Hamptons takes two hours. Mila falls asleep in the back seat, clutching her stuffed wolf, exhausted from yesterday's ordeal and this morning's excitement.
Sergei's hand finds mine on the center console.
"We're going to win," he says quietly. Too soft for sleeping ears—or electronic ones—to catch.
"I know."
"He hurt our daughter. Everything after this is justified."
"I know that, too."
"Whatever it takes, Isabelle. Whatever it costs. I'm ending him."
I squeeze his hand. "We're ending him. Together."
His smile is sharp. Dangerous. Mine.
"Together," he agrees.
Outside the window, Manhattan fades into highways, into suburbs, into the empty stretches of Long Island, where the rich hide from their problems. Ahead of us, the safe house waits—clean, secure, free from Matthew's surveillance.
Behind us, the city holds its breath.
The Wolf is hunting.
And he's not alone anymore.