Chapter 7
Lev
I’m not thinking about the USB drive in my pocket or the fact that we just got shot at.
I’m thinking about the woman in my passenger seat who is currently having what looks like the start of a full-blown panic attack in the front seat of my Ferrari.
Her breathing is ragged. Her hands are shaking. There’s blood on her throat from where I cut her, and I feel discomfort flare that I don’t have time to examine.
“Breathe,” I tell her.
She doesn’t respond. Her eyes are wide and glassy, staring straight ahead at nothing.
“Varvara,” I say, sharper this time. “Breathe. In through your nose. Out through your mouth.”
Still nothing.
I glance at her properly for half a second before my eyes go back to the road. She’s gone pale. Her lips are parted, gasping in shallow little breaths that won’t do her any good. Her whole body is locked rigid against the seat.
“Fuck,” I say and pull into my driveway. The gates open instantly, and I drive through so they can close behind us. I pull up outside the front door and cut the engine. The sudden silence makes her breathing sound even worse. Shallow, rapid, like her lungs have forgotten how to work properly.
I get out and move around to her side, opening the door. She doesn’t react. Just sits there, staring through the windscreen at my house like she can’t see it.
“Come on,” I say, keeping my voice level. “Inside.”
Nothing.
I lean down and unbuckle her seatbelt. The click makes her flinch, but that’s all. Her eyes don’t focus. Her hands stay clenched in her lap.
I slide one arm under her knees and the other behind her back and lift her out of the car. She weighs nothing. All that attitude and fury, and she weighs nothing at all.
Her head falls against my shoulder as I carry her to the door. Pyotr opens it before I reach the steps, takes one look at us, and goes completely blank.
“Sir,” he says carefully.
“Not now,” I tell him and move past.
I take her straight upstairs to my bedroom, which is probably, in hindsight, a really dumb move, but it’s the safest place for her.
I place her on the bed, her body shaking uncontrollably, her breathing erratic. I sit on the edge of the bed beside her and watch her chest heave with those useless little gasps. Her eyes are still unfocused, staring at something I can’t see.
“Varvara,” I say again, quieter now. “You need to breathe properly.”
Nothing.
I reach out slowly and place my hand on her shoulder. She flinches violently, her whole body jerking away from me. Her back hits the headboard, and she makes a small sound that hits me harder than it should.
“Hey,” I say, pulling my hand back. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Her eyes finally focus on me, and what I see there hits me hard. Terror. Pure, undiluted terror.
“Where am I?” she whispers.
“My house. You’re safe here.”
“Safe?” The word comes out broken. “You put a knife to my throat.”
I can’t argue with that. “I thought you were someone else.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No,” I agree. “It doesn’t.”
Her breathing is still too fast, too shallow.
I watch her for a moment, trying to work out what to do.
Without waiting another beat, she climbs off the bed and moves to the wardrobe.
I stand, turning to look at her. She opens the door and then drops to her knees.
With a frown, I take a step towards her and then freeze when she crawls into the cupboard and closes the door.
I’m not a man who usually has a loss of words, but this…. fuck. This hits me in the gut so hard, I swallow. I stare at the closed wardrobe door for a beat, processing what just happened.
She crawled into my wardrobe.
She had a panic attack and then crawled into my fucking wardrobe and closed the door.
I move closer and crouch down in front of it, listening. Her breathing is still ragged on the other side. I can hear her shifting, fabric rustling. The sound of someone trying to make themselves smaller.
“Varvara,” I say quietly.
No response.
I reach for the handle and then stop myself. Opening it without warning seems like a spectacularly bad idea given the state she’s in. Opening it at all, seems like an even worse idea.
So, I don’t. This is clearly her process, her system. She has done this before, and that is her space. Me barging into it is just going to make this worse.
I slowly back out of the room and close the door softly. She doesn’t need me hovering. In fact, it’s probably making her worse.
My phone buzzes, and I pull it out of my pocket.
Baron. Fuck it all to hell and back.
“Yeah,” I say, answering it.
“You had better have a damn good reason for defying a direct order.” I don’t flinch. “I had to make a judgement call.”
“Your judgement call was to let her walk?”
“My judgement call was not to kill an innocent woman who got caught in the crossfire.”
Silence stretches down the line. When Baron speaks again, his voice is colder. “Explain.”
I move down the stairs towards my office, keeping my voice low. “The dropper used her as the handoff. Probably spotted me or someone else tracking him. She’s a hostess at the club. She had no idea it was in her pocket until I checked it myself.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“How certain?”
“Certain enough that I brought her back here instead of putting a bullet in her head.”
Another pause. Longer this time. I can practically hear him calculating whether my instincts are worth trusting or whether I’ve just fucked up spectacularly.
“Where is she now?”
I glance back at my bedroom door. “In my wardrobe, having a panic attack.”
“Do I want to know?”
“We got shot at. Presumably by the actual handler.”
“Do you have the USB?”
“Yes.”
“Check it is what it’s supposed to be, and destroy it.”
“On it.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at my phone for a second, then pocket it and head into my office. Locking the door behind me, I pull out the USB and plug it into an isolated system that isn’t connected to any network. The screen flickers to life, and I scan through the files.
Shipping manifests. Warehouse locations. Personnel lists. Everything one would need to hit our operations in Canary Wharf. Exactly what Baron said would be on here.
I copy it to my encrypted drive, then remove the USB and snap it in half. The pieces go into the grinder I keep for exactly this purpose. Within seconds, it’s dust.
I lean back in my chair and scrub a hand over my face.
The woman upstairs is terrified. Of me. Because I held a knife to her throat, nicked her with it, and then dragged her away from someone shooting at us. Not my finest moment, I’ll admit.
But keeping her alive was the right call. The only call. I wasn’t letting her die for something she has no part of.
The problem is what to do with her now.
I can’t just let her go. She’s seen too much. If I send her home, she is as good as dead.
Staring at the bank of monitors still tracking Nathaniel Mercer, I decide what needs to happen.
Varvara needs to stay here. She is safe under my protection.
That is non-negotiable. She will hate it, hate me, but this is the vow I make to myself.
She is under my skin, and even if she had been the handler, I don’t know if I could’ve done what I was supposed to.
And that right there is a serious problem.
This woman is a serious problem.