Chapter Twelve
~ Iren ~
Vadim hadn’t slept. If he had, it was in the standing way some wild animals sleep—one eye open, claws ready, brain clocked to the next sound on the wire.
At six-forty a.m. I found him in the main corridor, the one that ran the full length of the house, standing at a window that framed the east lawn like a Renaissance painting, glass cold enough to haze the view.
He wore a suit that looked like it had been welded to his bones, and his hair was a black, perfect line from forehead to collar, not a strand out of alignment.
The sky outside was a nothing gray, the kind of morning that never resolved into proper day.
I could see his reflection in the glass: face sharp as a crime, gold watch on the wrist, a cup of coffee in his hand cooling by the quarter-second.
He wasn’t drinking it, just holding it, as if the act itself was a dare to the universe to intervene.
Lin ghosted through the corridor behind him, doing something to a vase that probably didn’t need to be done.
He saw me, made a note on his phone, and drifted off with the professional silence of a man whose job it was to haunt nice homes.
I got the impression he didn’t like mornings, or maybe he just didn’t like sharing them with mortals.
I almost said something to Vadim.
Almost.
Instead, I watched him watch the world, and wondered if he’d even noticed I was there. I didn’t expect him to say good morning. He wasn’t built for that.
He didn’t turn around when he said: “There’s news.”
His voice was low, half an octave below the ambient silence.
I padded up to the window, still barefoot, and leaned against the cold stone frame. “Good or bad?”
He looked at my reflection, not at me. “It depends.”
We stood there, both looking at the same blank sky, both pretending we could see more than we did.
After a minute, Lin reappeared, notepad in hand, and hovered behind us until Vadim turned. “Study,” was all he said.
I followed.
Vadim’s study was the only room in the house that didn’t try to impress. The walls were lined with shelves, filled less with books than with folders and leather-bound ledgers.
A single monitor on the desk, off. Two chairs—one his, one the universal “guest” model, which was only slightly less comfortable than a church pew. The window behind the desk was shuttered. The air smelled faintly of ink, and something sharper, metallic.
Yuri was waiting in the guest chair, his suit and tie a shade lighter than Vadim’s, but no less armor. He looked up when I entered, and nodded once, like a concession in a chess game already lost.
Vadim sat. “Report,” he said to Yuri.
Yuri spoke without preamble: “The letter from Parsons. The postmark is not from his home, or his practice. It’s a secondary drop, three miles north.”
Vadim absorbed this the way a man absorbs a blow: with stillness. “Active?”
“Unused for three years before last week,” Yuri said. “He set it up as a dead-drop, probably for this purpose alone.”
I sat on the arm of a leather sofa, trying to look casual and failing.
Vadim steepled his fingers, the watch glinting. “What else.”
Yuri handed him a folder. It was heavy, thick, the paper inside collated and tabbed. “The technicals pulled another letter. This one was inside a catalog, addressed to the club’s old mailbox. Lin caught it before it was trashed. It was never opened.”
Vadim took the folder, leafed to the plastic-sleeved evidence bag, and extracted a standard white envelope, barely thicker than the junk mail it had been hiding inside. He looked at it for a long time, thumb running over the seal.
Yuri added, “It’s addressed to Iren. No return.”
My mouth went dry. I didn’t reach for it, didn’t even move, just stared at the thing like it was radioactive.
Vadim didn’t look at me when he said, “You didn’t know?”
I shook my head, slow.
“Would you have told me if you did?” His tone was flat, not accusing, but not not-accusing either.
I stared at the envelope. “Yes.”
Yuri nodded, as if this confirmed some theory he’d held.
Vadim set the envelope on the desk. Then, to my surprise, he stood up, circled the desk, and held it out to me. He wasn’t offering it like a gift, more like a warning. “Open it,” he said.
My hands were steady. I broke the seal and slid out a single page, folded once. The handwriting was neat, tight, a perfectionist’s print.
I didn’t read it. I just stared at the top line, unable to process the fact that this was real, that Parsons had found a way through the wall, that even here, behind all the marble and muscle and money, I was not unreachable.
Vadim watched my face. After a long beat, he said, “Read it out loud.”
My voice was hoarse, but I did it anyway:
Iren—
It is strange to write your name, to imagine you seeing it on paper. I see you everywhere these days, and when I close my eyes at night, you are there in the same clothes, the same posture. I wonder if you know I can still see you. I wonder if, on some level, you want me to.
The house is ready. The room has been painted, the new window installed.
There is light here, good light, and I have ordered the shelves for your books.
I do not know what kind you prefer, but I have made my best guess.
There is a desk and a chair, and the mattress is new.
I chose one that will not hurt your back.
It is quieter here than I expected. I have work, but it is nothing without you in the space.
Sometimes I imagine you coming home, after a long day, sitting across from me at the table, and telling me about the things you have learned.
I would listen to every word. I would make you whatever dinner you wanted. I am learning to cook.
It is not right, what they are doing to you. I am sorry for it. I am sorry for the pain, and for the violence, and for the fear. You are not an object. You are a soul that can still be saved. I know you are frightened, but I am not frightened. I will wait for you. I will always wait.
If you are ready, you know how to find me. If you are not, I will be patient. One day soon, you will come. I believe this.
With patience and faith—
R.
I read it in a monotone, fast, just to get to the end before my voice cracked. When I was done, I set the letter on the table and wiped my hands on my jeans, because suddenly my skin was crawling with a cold, electric sweat.
Vadim was silent for a full minute. Then, quietly: “He is not going to stop.”
Yuri looked at him. “No.”
Vadim took the letter and folded it in half, then again, then set it aside. He was careful, almost tender, with the paper. “He will escalate.”
“Of course,” Yuri said.
Vadim turned to me. There was nothing soft in his face, but something about the lines had shifted—less calculation, more calculation. He said, “Are you afraid?”
I thought about it. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
He nodded, as if that made sense.
Yuri stood. “There are tactical options,” he said. “We can rotate the boy through safe houses. Never stay in one place longer than seventy-two hours. Or we take him abroad for a time—”
“No,” Vadim said. It was not a negotiation.
Yuri nodded. “Then we increase perimeter. No mail in or out unless it passes through Lin. Staff goes on lockdown.”
Vadim agreed, but his eyes were on me.
I looked at the shuttered window, then at him. “He knows where I am.”
Vadim didn’t argue.
I said, “He’s not going to come to the apartment, or the club. He’s going to come here.”
Vadim’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t blink. “He will try.”
Yuri made a note in his book. “We can be ready.”
Vadim waited until Yuri was gone, then sat down on the edge of the desk, directly in my line of sight. His voice was low. “Tell me if there is anything else. Any message, any sign, any thing he has sent you.”
I wanted to lie, but I didn’t. “That’s all,” I said. “I swear.”
He stared at me for a long time, and I realized he believed me. The belief landed harder than any interrogation would have. It made me feel seen, in a way I was not ready for.
I looked at the letter. “He’s going to try.”
Vadim nodded, slow. “Let him.”
There was a silence, then: “Why keep me here? Why not send me away?”
He was ready for the question. “You are safer here.”
I shook my head, but didn’t argue.
Vadim said, softer: “And I want you here. That is also the truth.”
The words hung in the air like a foreign object.
I let the moment go. “What happens now?”
He looked at the letter again. “We wait. We watch. And if he comes, I will handle it.”
There was nothing else to say.
I left the room and walked the corridor, feeling the cold stone under my bare feet, the chill that ran up through my bones. The estate was as secure as a tomb, but I had seen enough history to know that all fortresses fall. The only question was how loud it would be when it happened.
I went back to the bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed, and stared at my hands. I tried to read, but the words on the page slid off my brain. I thought about the man writing the letters, and the man reading them, and the thing in between them that had somehow become me.
* * * *
At dinner, Lin served Vadim a steak so rare it could have mooed. He poured me a glass of juice, and did not ask if I wanted vodka. The meal was silent except for the scrape of silverware, and the distant sound of the grounds crew somewhere far outside.
I watched Vadim eat, methodical and precise, every movement measured as if he could control the outcome of the universe by the way he held his fork.
When he was done, he said, “Do you want to see the letter again?”
I shook my head. “Not tonight.”
He nodded.
We ate dessert—a cold, perfect square of something French—and when we were finished, he took my plate and carried it to the kitchen himself.
I watched him go, and wondered if he ever slept, or if he just waited for the world to try him. When I got up to leave, he was already back in the main corridor, looking out at the black, unlit world.
I joined him.