Chapter 12 #2
“No.” Mama sips her wine again. “How have you evaded Grant this time?”
“I was staying with my parents. I packed a bag after the charge was dismissed, knowing he’d come after me because he had gotten away with murdering Mara.
I moved around until I found a motel with a manager who asked just enough to realize I was in trouble.
Kimberly offered me a job and a room with a lock that worked from my side. ”
Mama considers this. “Now you’re in a house with locks that work from someone else’s side.”
“The locks are different. The man is different. I’m still deciding whether the outcome will be.”
My mouth gets dry at that brief assessment. She doesn’t look at me, and neither does Mama, but Nathan slants me a glance. He’s either gauging how I took that or he’s trying to tell me “I told you so.” Either way, I don’t look directly at him.
“Good.” Mama picks up her coffee cup. “Don’t stop deciding. Make your own decisions. The women in this family who didn’t are the ones who didn’t survive.” She frowns. “My daughter deferred to her father in most things, and that got her killed.”
Nathan refills Margot’s water glass without being asked before he turns to Mama. “She passed the proof call. She caught a geography trap Kirill’s people planted and turned it back on them. She’s earned the right to sit at this table.”
Mama looks at Nathan. “Earning a seat and surviving it are different accomplishments.” She pauses. “Both require knowing when to stand up and leave.”
Margot nods, as though my mother’s words confirm her own instincts.
“She’s braver than you deserve,” Mama tells me without looking away from Margot. “That should concern you, because brave women in this family have a habit of paying for the decisions the men make on their behalf.”
Margot holds Mama’s stare, then looks back at her plate. She heard the warning and will clearly consider it later when no one is watching.
Nathan and Margot compare notes on two cities they’ve both passed through.
She laughs at his description of airport sushi, then catches herself, then laughs again.
When she laughs for my brother, it causes a deep ache in my gut.
It’s a little jealousy, but not because I think she and Nathan have anything but friendship.
It’s because I don’t have that easy camaraderie with her.
I’ve slept with her, but I haven’t talked to her the way my brother does without effort.
Josef excuses himself after the lamb and leaves with a nod to Mama that carries no warmth but considerable deference. Coffee is poured as the tiramisu is served. It’s another of Mama’s favorites.
After we finish dessert, the staff clears the last plates, and we linger over coffee.
The candles have burned down an inch since the first course, and the wax pools in the crystal holders Mama inherited from my grandmother and left in this house when she moved into her own smaller one a couple of years after Papa died.
Nathan tilts back his chair. “Margot was telling me about the motel.” He looks at me. “She used to keep a notebook behind the front desk rating every guest by how fast they’d hand over the key card when checking out. The ones who hesitated were the ones with something to hide.”
“Everyone who stayed at that motel had something to hide.” Margot lifts her coffee cup.
“The question was always what they were hiding from. Some of them were hiding from people. Some were hiding from themselves. I learned to tell the difference by how quickly they gave back key cards, but also from how they treated the continental breakfast.”
Nathan grins. “How?”
“People hiding from other people eat quickly and don’t make eye contact.
People hiding from themselves take their time and ask for seconds.
They look everywhere but at themselves, avoiding mirrored surfaces.
That sounds a lot more poetic than it is.
” She glances at me. “Your brother eats like he’s alone at the table. ”
Nathan points his coffee spoon at me. “She’s got you.”
I roll my eyes but don’t protest. Her insight is correct. I don’t care if anyone is watching, and I’m not hiding from myself or anyone else.
“What about me?” he asks Margot. “How do I eat?”
“Like the plate might disappear before you’re finished.” She says it without malice. “You eat fast, but you taste everything. You chewed the lamb six times per bite. You were taught to appreciate food but not to trust that it would last.”
Nathan stares at her. “That’s a terrifying skill.”
“It’s not a skill. It’s pattern recognition that’s baked into me now.
Even if I wanted to stop noticing how everyone eats, I don’t know that I could.
Three years of predicting whether a dinner would end in conversation or a broken dish taught me to read everyone at the table before the first course arrives. ”
“What did you read about Josef?”
“He ate the lamb but didn’t touch the potatoes. He drank two glasses of wine but never finished either one. He was performing presence, not enjoying the meal.” She looks at me. “He came here to deliver a message, and he delivered it. Everything else was staging.”
Zavid looks as impressed as Nathan. He finishes his coffee before standing. The evening is winding down. “I should head out.”
I nod at him, and we wait for his exit.
Mama stands when the table is cleared, and her coffee is finished. She doesn’t announce her departure. She touches Margot’s shoulder once as she passes by her, a gesture so brief it could be accidental. It’s not.
She crosses toward the hallway, and I follow because the way she paused at the door told me she has something left to say that the table isn’t meant to hear.
We stop in the corridor where the light from the dining room doesn’t reach.
She turns to face me with the candle glow behind her and the hallway dark ahead.
“You handled Josef well.” The compliment comes sparingly and with conditions attached. “Your father would have silenced him. You contradicted him. There’s a difference, and the room heard it.”
“Josef will hold it against me.”
“Josef holds a grudge and has a long memory. It’s his primary talent and was more often an asset than a detriment for Sergei.” She adjusts one pearl earring. “The question is whether he holds it against you with words or with action. If it’s action, you’ll need to move faster than he does.”
I nod slowly. “I’m aware I can’t trust him.”
“Trust no one automatically.” She says it almost gently.
“In your business, trust only yourself and those who have earned it.” Her tone changes to become brisk.
“The old transport routes through the south corridor… Three people had operational access to those routes when Katya disappeared. Josef, Kolya, and Nathan.”
I don’t react. I already know this, and I’m not surprised she has made it her business to learn as well. Even when my father was alive, making her live in fear, she did her best to stay informed and take pieces of power where she could.
“I’m not telling you who the leak is because I don’t know either.
I don’t believe it’s Nathan, but he’s my son, so I could have a blind spot.
” She steps closer. “I’m telling you where to look.
The corridor routes intersect with three of the compromised shipments Nadia flagged.
Whoever sold those routes had access to family-level security clearance, which eliminates outside contractors and narrows it to people who eat at my table. ”
“You’re sure about the access list?” I don’t know her source, but her information lines up with mine. I’m mainly asking in hopes she’ll tell me something I didn’t know or maybe give me a glimpse into how she gathers intelligence.
She doesn’t. “I’ve been managing this family’s operational knowledge for twelve years.
I know who had access to what and when that access changed.
” She holds my gaze. “Your father’s cage was made of control and indifference.
Yours is made of protection and good intentions.
Both cages lock from the same side, Valentin.
Make sure you know the difference before the woman inside it stops being able to tell. ”
Mama leaves. When I return to the dining room, Nathan is gone.
Only Margot remains, and she crosses to where I’m standing.
The candlelight catches the line of her face and the clean edge of the dress she chose from Nadia’s selections as I ruminate on Mama’s words.
Brave women in this family have a habit of paying for the decisions the men make on their behalf.
“Who do you think is the leak?” Margot’s voice is quiet and direct, and the question carries six weeks of watching, learning, and refusing to pretend she doesn’t see what’s happening inside these walls.
I look at her but don’t answer, because the honest answer would name a suspicion I lack proof to voice yet, and lying to Margot has become something I’m no longer willing to do casually.
She waits. Then she nods, like my silence told her more than words would have, and walks out.
I stand near the empty table with the candles burning down and the staff waiting at the edges.
Mama’s words haunt me as I finally leave the dining room to go upstairs.
I don’t want my decisions to lead to another woman’s death, especially not Margot’s.
I already care about her more than I should.
The smart thing would be to distance myself.
Instead, I pause at her door and knock. She answers a moment later, studies me for a moment, and opens the door wider. “Come in.”
When she closes the door behind her, I pull her into my arms. She doesn’t resist, and I ignore the voice whispering I’m risking far more than a bad operation by surrendering to the pull between us. That no longer matters when she’s against me, warm and willing.