Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
SLOANE
The hot water runs down my body the next morning, but it does nothing to quiet the nerves twisting through my muscles.
After I left to pick up the tools Eli had stashed for me, I almost didn’t come back.
The whole drive home, I kept picturing Kirill stopping me at the door, asking what was in my bag, telling me to open it.
But when I returned, he was in his study, so I slipped upstairs, shoved the tools into a shoebox, and hid them in the closet, praying no one would ever think to look there.
I told myself today had to be the day. Kirill is at work, Lev is at school, and once the guards rotate around noon, I’m going into that study whether I’m ready or not.
Still, every time I picture breaking into that safe, something goes wrong. The tools fail. A guard walks in. An alarm goes off. I end up bleeding out on Kirill’s polished floor. No matter how the scene plays out in my head, it always ends badly.
But I have to do this. I’m good at it. I’ve always been good at it.
All I need is ten minutes. In and out. Open it, take what I came for, close it, and make it look like I was never there at all.
By the time I step out of the shower, steam still clings to my skin, but noon is almost here and I have to be ready. I dry off fast, throw on something simple, twist my hair back, and tell myself to calm the hell down. If I let myself think too much, I’ll lose my nerve.
Back in my room, I kneel in front of the closet and drag the shoebox out from where I hid it before grabbing a tote bag and stuffing everything inside.
Then I wait.
When noon finally comes, no one stops me as I head downstairs. No one even glances my way even as my pulse pounds hard enough to make my ribs ache.
This is it.
The second I step into the hallway, I spot the guard walking off. The moment he disappears around the corner, I make for Kirill’s office and slip inside, easing the door shut behind me.
For one beat, I just stand there with my head tilted, listening for footsteps, but nothing comes. And that’s when I get to work.
My mouth goes dry as I kneel and unzip the bag, pulling the tools out, hoping my hands don’t shake and I don’t drop anything and make noise.
A slim drill. Thin latex gloves. A stethoscope to help me work out the lock and identify the combination.
A borescope, its tiny camera attached to a narrow wire I’ll feed through a hole small enough not to be noticed unless someone knows exactly where to look.
I slide on the gloves and drill a thin hole near the top, the whine of the bit deafening in the quiet room, even though I know it isn’t nearly loud enough to carry.
Then I pick up the borescope and feed it in carefully, inch by inch, until the view on my phone finally sharpens and the internal mechanism comes into view.
My pulse kicks harder, but I force myself to slow down, to think, to trust what I know.
I study the wheels, then reach for the dial and begin turning it with measured movements, watching for the subtle shifts inside the lock.
Every pass is slow. Every correction slower.
When I think I have the first number, I test it, then keep going, working through the sequence one position at a time.
The further I get, the tighter every muscle in my body draws. One number. Then the next.
By the time I reach the last one, my whole body is rigid with tension.
I try that one too, another click sounding off. Like the metal gives a little.
I go completely still. There’s no way it was that easy.
I carefully set the stethoscope down and slide the camera back out, packing everything away into the tote as quietly as I can. When my hand closes around the handle, I pause again, straining to hear anything out in the hall. Still nothing.
I turn the handle slowly. At first, it resists, and my stomach drops. But I know I was careful. I know I had the right combination. For one terrible second, I’m sure I’ve screwed it up anyway, that I’ve done all this for nothing.
I stiffen my grip, force myself to breathe, and try again.
This time…something gives, and the handle moves.
My eyes close, and I silently thank whoever watches over criminals, because I really needed that to work.
When I ease the door open, I find a deep safe lined with neatly stacked folders. A lot of them. There are a few sealed envelopes tucked off to one side, a couple of flash drives, but no ledger. Not that I can see.
If I did all of this for nothing, I’m going to lose my mind.
If he has another safe, I don’t know where it could be, nor will I have the guts to try this again. Once is enough.
The ledger has to be here. If it’s that valuable, maybe it’s hidden inside one of these folders.
I grab the first one and flip it open, skimming page after page of contracts with company names I couldn’t care less about.
I slide it back exactly where I found it and pull out the next manila folder.
More paperwork. More documents stamped across the top in elegant script that reads Marinov Holdings.
My hands shake while my mind races against an invisible clock. The longer I stay in here, the greater the chance I get caught.
I move through another stack, and that’s when I see it, shoved deep into the back corner.
A dark leather book. Worn at the edges.
My heart stops. It looks almost exactly like the one Eli described.
I open it just enough to check, and there they are: names, numbers, payments, account information, and coded notations marked with letters and symbols I don’t understand.
This is it. This has to be what he wants.
My grip tightens around the leather cover. If I take it, everything changes.
Kirill will know it’s gone. Sooner or later, he’ll figure out it was me. And the second that happens, whatever this is between us—whatever we might have had—will be over.
The family I’ve been quietly building in my head, the one I let myself imagine like some foolish girl who still believes in happily-ever-afters, will be gone the moment I walk out of here with this in my hands.
But Milo is my son. And when it comes to your child, you do whatever you have to.
Just as I’m about to close the safe, something else catches my attention. A large yellow envelope sits tucked beneath the folders, the letter E scrawled across the corner in thick black Sharpie.
I don’t know why I reach for it. But my gut insists I look inside.
I set the ledger at my feet and pull the envelope free. It’s sealed with a simple metal clasp. My fingers fumble as I undo it, unease already creeping over my skin before I even pull out the first page.
At first, it looks like a deed. And for some reason, the second I see it, cold shoots through me so fast, it’s like ice water has been poured straight down my back.
My eyes move to the listed owner—Kirill Marinov—which isn’t shocking on its own.
Then…I see the address.
“Oh my God…”
I gape at it, reading it once, then again, my brain refusing to make sense of what is right in front of me.
It’s our house. The one my sister and I have been living in.
My vision goes in and out of focus. I flip to the next page, then the next, my breathing turning uneven as I scan signatures, transfer records, dates. Dates that line up far too neatly with the worst stretch of my life.
None of it makes sense. Why would he own my house? Why would he keep that from me? Why wouldn’t he say anything?
What the hell is going on?
My hands shake so badly, the deed slips from my fingers. It flutters to the floor, but I don’t even stop to pick it up.
Instead, I reach deeper into the envelope and pull out a stack of photographs. Of me.
“Oh my God.” The words scrape out of my throat as panic hits so hard it makes the room tilt.
These pictures are old. Years old. One is of me walking out of my old house in New York. Another catches me leaving a meeting with social services.
Another…another is of me with Eli.
Holy shit. What the hell is happening here?
My lungs tighten so hard, it’s like there isn’t enough air left in the room.
Who the hell is Kirill? And what the hell did I just do?
A hundred thoughts crash into me at once, each one worse than the last.
Is he working with Eli? Has this all been some twisted setup from the beginning? Some test? Have they been playing me together this whole time while I stood here like an idiot thinking I knew anything at all?
Tears burn behind my eyes as I start grabbing everything, shoving the photos back into the envelope. I need to get out of here. I need to get Milo and run before whatever this is swallows me whole.
I snatch up the ledger and shove it back into the safe, my hands scrambling through the folders as I try to put everything back the way it was, trying to remember what sat where, what angle the papers were at, what was on top of what.
But nothing looks right anymore. He’s going to know. If he doesn’t already.
My heartbeat grows wild, pounding so hard it makes me sick, nausea rising fast just as the door creaks open behind me.
Fuck.
Every muscle in my body locks. I can’t make myself turn around. It could be a guard. It could be—
Footsteps. Slow. Unhurried. Coming closer.
All I can think about is Milo. How I’ll never get to hold him again. How I might not even get the chance to say goodbye.
Terror scorches the back of my throat as the room closes in around me, the air turning too thin, too tight.
And then something cold and metallic presses to the back of my neck. Firm. Unmistakable.
A gun.
The blood drains from my body so fast, I nearly crumple.
“My, my,” a voice says from behind me, harsh with amusement. “Malenkaya vorovka.”
The words slide over me like a noose tightening.
“I’m disappointed.”
A broken whimper escapes, my whole body quaking as the barrel presses harder into my skin.
“You have five seconds to convince me not to kill you, Eden. And I would start now.”