Chapter 29 #2
I dismiss everyone except him, then close the sitting-room doors. Nora remains near the table, still dressed in the soft sweater she wore while waiting for me. A faint crease marks one cheek from the pillow she had leaned against before I went downstairs.
She should have spent tonight asking me to stay in bed. I'm about to explain how I imitated her voice on a screen while kissing her and calling it protection.
"The dating profile remained open under monitoring after we identified him," I say. "On Monday, I authorized a response through a cloned session. The message used your language, told him you were returning to the clinic on Thursday and warned him to stay away."
Nora doesn't move. "You wrote to him as me. The contract forbids impersonating me."
"My team sent it under my order. I violated the clause."
No explanation can soften that fact. She read the clause herself, marked it in ink, then made me initial the change beside her.
Her gaze shifts toward the security chief. "Could you see the messages he sent my phone?"
"Only activity inside the dating account," he answers. "Personal calls or texts remain private unless you disclose them."
She gives a single nod, absorbing the split. "What did the message tell him about the market?"
"It named the clinic day. I preserved your usual clinic-to-market route because we wanted him to approach somewhere our outer teams could identify him."
The last softness leaves her expression.
"You gave him my normal life as bait."
"I exposed a day and route while placing protection around both.
The operation failed to account for copied access, a bribed employee, or your undisclosed relationship with the person receiving the delivery.
" My voice sounds even, though each word cuts deeper as I say it.
"My response drew him toward Thursday. Keeping the route unchanged gave him the opening that led to your grandmother. "
Nora looks past me toward the bedroom, where specialists examine the drawer that held the card. "Were you ever going to tell me?"
I want to say yes, but I had planned to wait until after we captured him. "I intended to tell you after we captured him."
"So I could forgive a finished operation instead of refusing an active one."
I don't insult her with a denial.
After admitting my plan, I have no defense left. We broke different promises, and the stalker's threat cannot excuse either choice.
Her hand drifts toward her stomach and then falls before touching it.
"I hid Grandma because I thought distance from this family would protect her.
After the photograph arrived, I kept quiet because I believed your response would bring armed men to her door.
That was fear, Konstantin. What was yours? "
"Control."
Saying it doesn't reduce what it did.
I tell the chief to have the market records preserved before any clerk can alter them. He leaves us alone, taking Nora's authorized copy of the thread.
At eleven, the thread remains silent. No new demand appears when the deadline passes, confirming that the hour existed to keep Nora frightened and waiting rather than to begin any honest exchange.
Even after the security chief leaves, the intrusion remains visible in the fresh sheets, warm lamps, open dressing-room door, and water beside our bed. Every intimate object is now part of a security diagram. Nora stays beyond my reach, though less than three feet separates us.
"I asked you tonight whether something reached you," I say. "You lied while the threatening photograph was already on your phone."
Her lower lip trembles before she steadies it. "I did. I also called her every day, checked her locks, and tried to solve a threat I should have shown you. My silence left you unable to guard her."
"My operation created the route."
"I know."
She doesn't offer equality where none exists. The mercy of that restraint makes my own choice uglier.
Near midnight, the market's retained order appears in the evidence room.
The clerk who processed the transaction accessed the delivery form twice, then received a cash deposit through a neighborhood check service the next morning.
Camera footage shows him photographing the covered label before leaving in the market's delivery van.
The clerk is already in custody by the time the house sweep reaches the private floor. He claims he delivered the groceries, took the picture at the door for a man who promised more work and deleted the number. He knows nothing about the bedroom.
We can now prove the route to Grandma, and the bedroom breach remains unexplained.
At twelve twenty-three, my chief recommends abandoning the residence until every wall, credential, and member of staff is cleared. Nora hears the report beside me.
"I'll move to another room tonight," she says.
"The entire house is compromised."
"Then I remain under protection somewhere else. I won't sleep in your room." She accepts another protected room while refusing mine, preserving safety without allowing danger to end the argument for us.
I call for a separate protected suite while relocation options are assessed. When I reach for the phone she left on the table, Nora takes it first.
The movement brings her close enough for me to smell the drugstore lotion beside her pulse.
I remember that scent under our sheets, warmed by her skin while she slept against me.
Desire still exists, cruelly intact, but touching her now would turn need into another means of keeping her where I want her.
Nora steps back. "After the restaurant," she says, "did you ever stop using me as bait?"