Chapter 15 - Rodion
Kirill was waiting in the study when we arrived, standing at the window with his back to us, his posture rigid with the particular stillness that meant his mind was working through problems most people couldn't comprehend.
He turned when we entered, his pale eyes moving from me to Keira and back again. If he noticed anything different between us—any lingering tension from the kiss, any new intimacy from the conversation in this very room an hour ago—he didn't show it.
"The Petrovics have gone dark," he said without preamble. "No communications on any of the channels we monitor. No movement at their known locations in New Jersey or Staten Island. No contact with their usual associates."
"How long?" I asked.
"Thirty-six hours. Maybe longer."
"That's not good."
"No. It's not." He moved to the desk, where he'd spread out several documents—maps, photographs, what looked like surveillance reports.
"Silence like this means one of two things.
Either they've been hit by someone else and are licking their wounds, or they're consolidating before a major operation. "
"And since no one's hit them..."
"They're planning something. Something big enough to require complete operational security.
" He glanced at Keira. "I'll be staying in the building until we have a better sense of what's coming.
The family keeps an apartment two floors down for when any of us are in New York. I've already had my things sent there."
Keira nodded, and I saw her file away this information—the reminder that my family owned not just this penthouse but multiple properties in the building, that our reach extended further than she'd probably realized.
Kirill turned back to the documents on the desk. "I've been cross-referencing our intelligence on Petrovic operations, but there are gaps. Things we don't know."
Keira had moved closer to the desk, studying the documents with an expression I couldn't quite read. She picked up one of the photographs—a grainy image of a warehouse somewhere industrial.
"I know this place," she said quietly.
Kirill's eyes sharpened. "How?"
"One of my patients described it. A woman who escaped their trafficking operation about two years ago.
" She set down the photograph and picked up another.
"This one too. She said they moved her between three locations before she managed to get away.
She described them in detail—the layouts, the security, the routines. "
"You remember all of that?"
"I remember everything my patients tell me. It's part of the job." She looked up at Kirill, meeting his gaze directly. "I also remember other details. Names she overheard. Patterns she noticed. Things that might not have meant anything to her but could mean something to you."
Kirill studied her for a long moment, that unnerving assessment he did with everyone. Most people looked away. Keira didn't.
"Tell me," he said.
She did. For the next twenty minutes, she walked us through everything she'd learned from the survivors she'd treated—not just the woman who'd described these locations, but others who'd shared fragments of information over the years.
Guard rotations. Delivery schedules. The names of low-level operatives who'd let details slip.
The particular cruelties that marked Petrovic operations versus others.
I watched her transform as she spoke. This wasn't the woman who'd kissed me yesterday, or the one who'd shared her grief about her mother this morning. This was Dr. Walsh—clinical, precise, her mind organizing information with the efficiency of someone trained to find patterns in chaos.
And I watched Kirill transform, too. The suspicion that had marked his interactions with her was giving way to something else. Not warmth—Kirill didn't do warmth—but respect. The recognition of a useful ally.
"The woman who escaped," Kirill said when she finished. "The one who described the locations. Is she still in contact with you?"
"No. She relocated after our sessions ended. Somewhere out west, I think. She wanted to get as far from the East Coast as possible."
"But she might have more information. Details she didn't share, or didn't think were important."
"Possibly. But I won't put her at risk by reaching out. She's built a new life. She deserves to keep it."
I expected Kirill to push. Information was currency in our world, and he wasn't known for sentimentality. But he just nodded, a single sharp movement.
"Understood."
Keira blinked, clearly surprised. "Just like that?"
"You've given us more than we had. I'm not going to compromise a source for marginal gains." He gathered the documents, straightening them into a neat pile. "I need to make some calls. Cross-reference what you've told me with our own intelligence. See if anything connects."
He left without another word, the door clicking shut behind him. Keira stared after him with an expression I recognized—the slightly shell-shocked look of someone who'd just survived a Kirill assessment.
"That went well," I said.
"Did it? I couldn't tell."
"Trust me. If it hadn't gone well, you'd know." I moved to stand beside her, looking down at the photographs still spread across the desk. "You impressed him. That's not easy to do."
"I wasn't trying to impress him. I was trying to be useful."
"Why?"
She was quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing the edge of one of the photographs. "Because I spent the last two days feeling helpless. Hiding in rooms, waiting for other people to solve my problems. I don't know how to live like that."
"Most people in your situation would be happy to let others handle things."
"I'm not most people." She looked up at me, and I saw the steel beneath the exhaustion. "I built a life from nothing once. I can do it again. But not if I'm just a passenger in my own story."
I understood that. More than she probably realized.
I'd spent my whole life being the charming one, the easy one, the brother who smoothed things over while Demyan made the hard decisions and Kirill handled the violence.
Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to be something else.
Someone who acted instead of performing.
"You're not a passenger," I said. "Not anymore."
"No?"
"No. You're a partner. Whether you wanted to be or not."
Something shifted in her expression. A softening, maybe, or the beginning of trust. "Is that what we are? Partners?"
"I don't know what we are. But partner seems as good a word as any."
She almost smiled at that. Almost. "I suppose it does."
We stood there for a moment, the silence between us comfortable in a way it hadn't been before. Something had changed—not just the kiss, not just the conversation about our mothers, but this. Watching her hold her own with Kirill. Seeing her refuse to be a victim.
"You haven't eaten," I said. "Neither have I. We should fix that."
"Is that your way of asking me to have lunch with you?"
"It's my way of saying we both need food and the kitchen is twenty feet away." I gestured toward the door. "But if you want to call it a date, I won't argue."
"A date." She shook her head, but she was smiling now—a real smile, small but genuine. "We're married, living in the same apartment, hiding from people who want to kill me, and you're asking me on a date."
"I never claimed to have good timing."
"No. You really don't."
But she followed me to the kitchen anyway.
I cooked. Nothing elaborate—pasta with olive oil and garlic, a salad thrown together from whatever was in the refrigerator—but it felt strangely domestic. Intimate in a way that had nothing to do with physical contact.
She sat at the island and watched me work, her chin propped on her hand, asking questions about the ingredients, the technique, where I'd learned to cook.
"My mother," I said, stirring the pasta. "She insisted that all of us learn. Said she wasn't raising men who couldn't feed themselves."
"Smart woman."
"She was." I drained the pasta, tossed it with the oil and garlic. "Demyan never took to it. Kirill learned because she told him to, but I don't think he's cooked a meal since she died. Mikhail was actually good—better than me. He used to experiment, try new recipes."
"And you?"
"I cook when I need to think. It's meditative. Following steps, measuring ingredients, creating something from raw materials." I plated the food and set one in front of her. "Plus, it impresses women."
"Does it?"
"You tell me."
She twirled pasta around her fork, took a bite, and her eyes widened slightly. "Okay. I'm impressed."
"See? Works every time."
We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes. The afternoon light slanted through the windows, casting long shadows across the counter. Outside, the city hummed with its usual energy, oblivious to our situation.
"Tell me something," she said. "Something that has nothing to do with the Petrovics or the Irish or any of this."
"Like what?"
"Anything. Something normal. Something you'd tell someone on an actual first date."
I thought about it. What did people talk about on first dates? It had been so long since I'd been on one that wasn't a prelude to a business arrangement or a one-night stand.
"I hate opera," I said.
She laughed—a real laugh, surprised out of her. "That's what you're going with?"
"You said something normal. I hate opera. Everyone assumes I love it because I'm Russian and wealthy, so I end up at these interminable performances, pretending to be moved by people screaming in Italian while I count the minutes until I can leave."
"What do you actually like?"
"Jazz. Old movies. Books that aren't about business or strategy or any of the things I'm supposed to care about." I twirled more pasta around my fork. "I read a lot of poetry when I was younger. Before everything happened. Before I had to become this."
"You read poetry?"
"Don't sound so surprised."