35. Viktor
VIKTOR
I’m at the kitchen table by seven, coffee in hand, when Ginger wanders in still half asleep and stops dead in the doorway, staring at my face.
“What happened to you?”
“I had a little accident with my car last night. Nothing serious.” I keep my voice light. “Bumped my nose. It looks worse than it feels.”
“Did it hurt?”
“A little. I’m fine now.”
She studies me, then apparently decides my answer is acceptable, because she climbs into the chair beside me and asks if she can have the syrup for her pancakes. “Does it look cool?” she asks, apparently reconsidering. “Like a scar?”
“Devastatingly cool. I’m considering keeping the bandage forever for the effect.”
“You should. It makes you look tough.”
“I appreciate the endorsement.”
Harper watches the exchange from the stove, saying nothing, letting me handle it my way, and once Ginger’s fully absorbed in breakfast, she catches my eye with a look that says we’ll be having a longer version of that conversation later, just not in front of her.
I’m sore, genuinely, my shoulder aching every time I reach too far, a dull throb behind my bandaged nose that ibuprofen’s only partially managing.
But I’m upright, functional, capable of doing everything today requires, which is considerably more than I could say for myself twelve hours ago when I was still half convinced I’d broken something worse than pride.
Dimitri arrives before Ginger’s even finished breakfast, tablet in hand, expression sharp with the particular focus he gets when he’s spent all night working instead of sleeping.
“Mechanic finished the assessment on the car,” he says, once we’re alone in the study. “You want the short version or the technical one?”
“Short version first.”
“Someone tampered with your brake line before you ever left the club last night. Not enough to fail immediately, enough to fail exactly when you hit that curve on Delancey, which anyone who’s driven your usual route home knows requires real braking.
This wasn’t a random accident, and it wasn’t opportunistic either.
Someone had access to your car, knew your route, and timed this specifically. ”
“Show me.”
Dimitri pulls up photographs on the tablet: close-ups of the brake line itself, a clean partial cut that wouldn’t have shown on a casual inspection, engineered to fail under exactly the pressure a sharp curve demands.
“Whoever did this knew what they were doing,” I say, studying the image. “This isn’t amateur sabotage. This is someone with real mechanical knowledge, or someone who paid for that knowledge.”
“My thoughts exactly. Which narrows the list of who could pull this off, even if it doesn’t narrow who ordered it.”
“Who had access?”
“That’s the part I don’t like.” Dimitri sets the tablet down, jaw tight.
“The car was parked in the club’s private lot the entire evening.
Staff access only. Which means either someone on our own payroll is compromised, or someone got past security good enough that we didn’t notice, which is its own problem entirely. ”
I sit with that, the two possibilities equally unwelcome. “Pull employment records. Everyone with lot access, cross-reference against anyone hired in the last six months, anyone with financial trouble we might have missed in the original background checks.”
“Already started. I’ll have a shortlist by tonight.” He studies me for a moment. “How are you actually doing? Not the version you gave Ginger.”
“Sore. Functional. Considerably better than I have any right to feel after a rigged brake line sent me into a curve at speed.”
“You got lucky.”
“I know.”
“Harper?”
“Better than I expected. Angry, still, in places. But she stayed with me all night instead of going back to the guest room, and this morning she looks at me like she’s actually choosing to be here, not just tolerating it.
” I rub a hand over my face, careful of the bruising.
“We move today. To the property. I’m not waiting another night in a house with a compromised security perimeter and a brake line that proves someone can reach us here. ”
“Agreed. I’ll have the team start loading by nine.”
Harper finds me in the study twenty minutes later, Ginger occupied with a cartoon in the other room, and closes the door behind her.
“Tell me the real version,” she says. “Not the one you gave Ginger.”
I do. The brake line, the timing, the fact that whoever did this had access to the club’s private lot, meaning this wasn’t a stranger watching from a distance anymore; this was someone close enough to reach directly into my life.
“That’s why we’re moving today,” she says, working it out loud. “Not just because of the attempt on Ginger. Because they’ve proven they can get to you too, wherever you actually are.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” She nods, steadier than I expect, already thinking practically instead of spiraling. “What do I need to pack? What does Ginger need to know before we go?”
“Whatever you think she can handle. I’ll follow your lead on that, same as always.”
“I’ll tell her we’re moving somewhere with a bigger yard.
Somewhere she can see the treehouse she already fell in love with.
” Harper’s voice stays level, working through the logistics with the same focus she brings to everything now that she’s actually let herself be part of it.
“I don’t want to scare her more than necessary. ”
“Agreed.”
We spend the morning packing, with Harper handling Ginger’s room herself to keep the transition as painless as she can manage, while I coordinate with the security team to move furniture and equipment ahead of us to the new property.
Dimitri splits his attention between logistics and the growing list of club employees who had lost access last night, narrowing it steadily as the day goes on.
By early afternoon, the caravan’s ready, three vehicles instead of one, security front and back, Harper and Ginger in the middle car with two of my most trusted men, myself trailing behind with Dimitri, watching the road behind us more closely than I’ve watched anything in years.
The drive out takes just under an hour, city thinning into hills, until the stone house finally comes into view at the end of its long private drive, exactly as defensible in person as it looked in the photographs.
Ginger’s out of the car before it’s fully stopped, sprinting toward the treehouse visible from the back windows, and for a moment, watching her run free across an open yard without a single visible worry, the entire weight of the last twenty-four hours eases slightly, replaced by something closer to relief.
Harper watches her too, then looks at me, taking in the bandage still taped across my nose, the careful way I’m still favoring my shoulder.
“We made it,” she says.
“We made it. For today.”
“For today’s enough.” She takes my hand, careful of the bruising along my knuckles I hadn’t even mentioned to her yet. “Tomorrow, we figure out the rest. Tonight, I just want to get Ginger settled and actually sleep somewhere that isn’t waiting for another car to come through a wall.”
I squeeze her hand, watching Ginger disappear into the treehouse, and for the first time since the accident, I let myself believe, even briefly, that today’s move might buy us the time we need.
The investigation doesn’t pause just because we’ve moved. Neither does the danger. But tonight, at least, we face both of them from somewhere considerably harder to reach.