Chapter 20
Tigran
The note arrives on expensive cream-colored paper that feels soft between my fingers as I read the words that chill me. Someone slipped it under the mansion’s front gate sometime during the night, bypassing every security measure I put in place after Claude’s murder.
Mrs. Belsky, Your father was just the beginning. You’re next. Soon. —A.F.
The photograph attached with a paperclip shows Zita at her father’s funeral, taken from across the cemetery with a telephoto lens.
She’s standing beside Claude’s grave, her black dress stark against the gray October sky, tears streaming down her face while I stand behind her with my hand on her shoulder.
The image is sharp and professional, taken by someone who had plenty of time to find the perfect angle.
They were watching us even in our most private moment of grief. The Federoffs had eyes on us, documenting our pain for their own sick satisfaction while we buried the man whose death I failed to prevent.
“Sir?” Viktor stands in the doorway of my study, his expression grim. “The perimeter team found no signs of forced entry. Whoever delivered this knew our patrol schedules.”
I crumple the note in my fist, then immediately smooth it out again because it’s evidence, even if it makes me sick to look at it. “How many people knew the exact time and location of the funeral?”
“Inner circle and a few of his close friends Mrs. Belsky insisted on notifying. Perhaps twenty-five people total, including the priest and cemetery staff.”
“Run background checks on all of them.” I slide the photograph into a plastic evidence bag, though I doubt we’ll find anything useful. “From now on, we assume every move we make is being watched.”
“What about Mrs. Belsky?”
I look toward the ceiling, where I hear Zita moving around in our bedroom. She’s been restless since Claude’s death, cycling between periods of numbness and explosive anger that she directs mostly at herself. The grief has consumed her in ways I recognize but don’t know how to help her process.
“Pack for an extended stay somewhere remote. We’re leaving tonight.”
“Where to?”
“Door County. We’ll stay at the cabin we used to plan the Mitznova stratagem last year.
” The safehouse is isolated, defensible, and unknown to all but my most trusted men.
If we can’t guarantee Zita’s safety here, surrounded by guards and security systems, then we need to disappear until I can eliminate the threat permanently.
Viktor nods and heads for the door, then pauses. “Boss? How long are we planning to stay hidden?”
“Until Avgar Federoff is dead and his organization is scattered to the wind.” I meet his gaze. “However long that takes.”
Three hours later, we’re driving north through the Wisconsin countryside in an unmarked SUV with bulletproof glass and run-flat tires.
Zita sits beside me in the passenger seat, staring out the window at farmland and forests that blur past in the darkness.
She hasn’t spoken since I told her about the note, just nodded when I explained we were leaving immediately.
The silence between us feels different from the comfortable quiet we’ve shared in recent weeks. This silence carries the weight of her grief and my failure to protect what mattered most to her. Since Claude’s death, something has shifted between us that I don’t know how to navigate.
“How far?” she asks finally.
“Two hours, maybe less if traffic stays light.” I glance at her profile, noting the exhaustion written in the lines around her eyes. “You should try to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep anymore. Every time I close my eyes, I see Papa bleeding out on that office floor.” She presses her forehead against the cool glass of the window. “I see his last moments playing on repeat like some horrible movie I can’t turn off.”
“The nightmares will fade with time.”
“Will they? Or is that just something people say to grieving daughters because they don’t know what else to offer?”
The question is honest and raw in a way that demands an equally honest answer. “The nightmares fade, and the sharp edges of the pain dull into something more manageable. The loss itself never goes away completely.”
“How would you know?”
“I’ve been where you are. I understand what it feels like to lose the only parent who ever loved you to violence you couldn’t prevent.”
She turns to look at me then, and I see something shift in her expression. For the first time since Claude’s death, she’s seeing me as something other than the source of her pain. “Your mother.”
“My mother.” I keep my eyes on the road, but I can feel her gaze on me. “Grief is complicated, Zita. It makes you want to blame someone, to direct all that rage at a target you can actually reach. I spent years hating everyone except the man who actually pulled the trigger.”
“I don’t blame you for Papa’s death.” Her voice is quiet but steady. “I blame myself for not seeing it coming, for not being smart enough to anticipate their move, and for not protecting him the way he tried to protect me.”
The admission reveals what’s been eating at her since the funeral. Not anger at me, but guilt over her perceived failure to save her father. I understand that particular form of self-destruction because I’ve lived with it myself.
“You couldn’t have known they’d target him directly.
” I risk reaching for her hand, relieved when she doesn’t pull away.
“Claude knew the risks when he aligned himself with our family. He chose to protect you that day in his office. He died because the Federoffs are animals who kill innocent people to send messages.” I bring her hand to my lips, pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles.
“Don’t take responsibility for their choices. ”
“Someone has to take responsibility.” She leans back against the headrest, closing her eyes. “Someone has to carry what happened, and you’re already carrying enough.”
The insight into how she’s been processing her grief cuts through me.
She’s been protecting me from her pain, trying to shoulder the blame alone instead of letting me help her carry it.
The partnership we’ve built has become so important to her that she’d rather destroy herself than burden me with her struggle.
“You don’t have to protect me from your grief.” I squeeze her hand gently. “We’re supposed to handle these things as a team, remember?”
“I remember.” Zita opens her eyes to look at me. “I just don’t know how to let you help when you’re dealing with your own guilt about not keeping us safe.”
“We stop trying to manage everything alone and start trusting each other with the difficult parts.”
She nods but returns to silence, leaving me unsure if I got through to her as I keep driving to the cabin.
It sits on forty acres of dense forest, with a private lake that reflects the stars like scattered diamonds across its surface.
The structure is smaller than I remembered from our last visit, with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living area dominated by a stone fireplace that provides both heat and light.
“This is it?” Zita asks as we step inside, her voice echoing slightly in the empty space.
“It’s defensible, isolated, and off the grid except for satellite communications.” I flip switches, bringing lights and heat online while my men conduct a security sweep of the surrounding area. “No one knows this place exists except people I trust with my life.”
“People you trusted with your life thought Papa was safe at his office too.”
The accusation hits its mark because it’s true. Every security protocol I put in place failed to protect her father. Every precaution I took wasn’t enough to prevent the Federoffs from reaching us when it mattered most.
“You’re right. Every system can be compromised, and every precaution can fail.
” I turn to face her fully. “This place is different because it has no staff, no regular schedules, and no patterns for them to learn and exploit. It’s just us and a few guards who’ve proven their loyalty over years of service. ”
Zita moves to the window that overlooks the lake, her reflection ghostlike in the dark glass. “How long do we stay here?”
“As long as it takes to end this forever.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer I can give you right now.” I join her at the window, close enough to catch her scent but careful not to crowd her while she’s processing everything. “I’m working on a solution, but these things take time to arrange properly.”
“What kind of solution?”
“The permanent kind.”
She processes this, and I see the moment she understands what I’m really saying. Her reflection in the window shows pleasure rather than shock. “You’re planning to kill them all.”
“Every last one. Avgar, his lieutenants, his soldiers, his suppliers, and his financiers. Everyone who had a hand in your father’s death gets eliminated.” I touch her shoulder. “I’m going to dismantle his entire organization piece by piece until there’s nothing left but memories and obituaries.”
“What happens after that? We go back to the mansion and pretend this never happened? We resume building our life together like Papa wasn’t murdered because of our alliance?”
The questions are fair, and I don’t have easy answers for any of them. How do you rebuild a relationship when grief has changed one of the people involved? How do you move forward when the foundation you built together is stained with blood?
I admit my uncertainty rather than offering false reassurance. “I don’t know what happens after. I’ve never been in this situation before.”
“What situation is that?”
“Loving someone whose pain becomes more important than my own selfish interests.”
The admission slips out more honestly than I intended, but I don’t try to take it back. Zita stares at me for a long moment, her expression unreadable in the dim light.