4. Alexei #2
I pick up the second photograph from the desk.
Enzo stands beside the older woman from New York.
Dark hair, elegantly streaked with silver, and a face sharpened by age, restraint, and power.
I've studied the image enough that I should be tired of looking at it by now. Instead, I keep coming back to the same problem. She feels familiar, just not in any way I can explain. It’s a persistent feeling that I've seen her before and forgotten where.
“The older woman.”
Roman nods. “We're still digging.”
I rub a hand across my jaw. The lack of answers is answer enough. People don't stay hidden from Roman by accident.
A quick knock comes at the office door before it opens. Luka enters with one of Roman’s men behind him. The air changes again, becoming colder, more operational. The man carries a folder.
“We just received information,” the man tells Roman.
Roman takes the folder from him and opens it. “Leave us.”
They leave at once. Luka closes the door behind them.
Roman lays another page on the desk. “Preliminary list of mercenary brokers who might connect to Enzo’s routes.”
“How many?”
“Seven.”
“How many matter?” I ask, scanning the list.
“Three.”
I read the names. Two I recognize. One I don’t. “This one?” I question, pointing at the third name.
“Specializes in family extractions, political removals, and corporate kidnappings disguised as custody disputes.”
My blood goes still in my veins. “Custody disputes.”
A muscle in Roman’s jaw ticks. “That caught my attention as well.”
I turn back to the photograph of the woman with Enzo. “Clara.”
We’re both already following the same thread. Clara’s hidden message. Keep Ivy hidden. The money that appeared after her death. The family in New York she claimed to have left behind. Enzo tied to Italian networks. An older woman with enough influence to make him defer.
We still don't have the full picture, but the pieces are starting to lead somewhere.
“Who was Clara hiding Ivy from?” I murmur.
“We don’t have that answer yet.”
“We need to get it.”
“We will,” Roman assures me.
Very few people outside of blood ever mattered enough to earn Roman's respect. Clara was one of them. If her past is connected to the threat against Ivy, that alone guarantees he won't let this go.
He turns one of the photos toward me again. “Until then, Enzo remains visible.”
“Too visible.”
“Yes.”
“A decoy?”
“Maybe.” Roman meets my eyes. “Or a man arrogant enough to believe he’s the one giving orders.”
“Either way, he bleeds when I find him.”
“He bleeds after we know who stands behind him.”
My hands clench into fists. My mind goes back to Enzo sitting across the restaurant table from me. His smile. His insinuations. The way he spoke about Maggie as if she were leverage to be used and discarded.
Roman’s voice cuts into the memory. “Don’t lose discipline now, brat.”
He holds my stare with the same patience he used when we were younger, and I wanted to solve every insult with my fists. Roman was always colder than I was. Better at waiting and making pain useful.
I straighten one of the photographs on the desk.
“They tried to take my daughter.”
“And killed Irina.”
My hand stills. “Yes.”
“And Maggie saw one of them.”
I don’t answer.
Roman’s focus changes. “There it is.”
“There’s what?”
He closes the folder and studies me across the desk. “You were careful at dinner until you weren’t.”
I already dislike where this conversation is headed. “Maggie saved Ivy.”
“You said that last night.”
“Because it matters.”
Roman folds his arms across his chest. “It does. But it’s not all that matters.”
I move away from the desk toward the window. Outside, one of the patrols passes beneath a security light. The man’s rifle remains angled down, but his attention never leaves the tree line.
“She shouldn’t be in this,” I say. I don't need to look at him to know he's studying my reaction instead of my words.
“She is.”
“I know.” I drag a hand through my hair.
“Do you?”
There it is. The conversation he’s been steering toward since dinner.
I let out a slow breath. “Be careful.”
Roman doesn’t react to the warning. “I’m asking whether you understand what she is now.”
“She’s under my protection.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I hold his stare. Lying to Roman is a waste of breath. He would hear the lie before I finished speaking.
“I care for her,” I say finally.
Roman doesn’t look surprised at the admission which annoys me. He moves toward the bar without a word and pours two drinks. The ice clicks against the crystal.
“How much?” he asks.
I take the glass he offers. “Enough.”
Roman leans one hip against the edge of the desk. “For what?”
“To keep her.”
Roman takes a slow sip of whiskey. “Does she know that?”
“Yes.”
“Does she understand what it means?”
I swirl the whiskey once before taking a drink. “No.”
There’s the truth. Maggie trusts me. She wants me.
She’s seen pieces of my world and chosen not to run.
But she doesn’t understand how permanent my choices become once I make them.
She doesn’t understand that the moment she became important to Ivy, she became important to me.
Since then, every line has blurred until I can no longer separate protecting her from wanting her.
Maggie still thinks love is a choice people make every day. In my world, once someone is mine, they stay mine.
Roman exhales through his nose. “Then make sure she lives long enough to learn.”
The meaning is impossible to miss.
“Maggie can identify the attacker who escaped,” he continues. “That makes her useful to us.”
“And dangerous to them,” I add.
“Correct.”
Loose ends get cut. Neither of us says it aloud.
A knock comes at the door again. This time, Luka enters without anyone behind him. “The car is ready.”
Roman checks his watch. “I return to New York tonight.”
“You just arrived.”
“And now I have more to hunt there than here.”
I nod once. That much I expected. Roman’s power sits in networks, contacts, men who owe him, and men who fear owing him. If the answers are tied to New York, he’ll dig them out himself.
He finishes the whiskey and takes the folder. “Keep Ivy close. Keep Maggie closer. No shelter. No public outings. No routine they can predict.”
“Maggie will fight me on the shelter.”
“Then win.”
I give him a flat look.
Roman’s mouth doesn’t move, but amusement appears in the slight narrowing of his eyes. “You have handled worse negotiations.”
“Not with Maggie.”
That earns the smallest pause. Then he inclines his head once, as if conceding the point. “Then be honest with her.”
“I intend to be.”
“Do it before fear makes the decision for both of you.”
Roman doesn't waste time telling people how to live their lives. The fact that he's saying it now tells me he sees something coming that I don't.
“I’ll keep her safe,” I say.
Roman pauses at the door. “That was never in doubt.”
“Then what is?”
“Everything that comes after.”
He leaves me with that and steps into the hall.
I follow him through the house to the front entrance. Staff keep to the edges of the foyer, trying not to stare and failing. Roman’s men fall into position without command.
At the door, Roman pauses and looks back toward the staircase. “She’s good for Ivy.”
I follow his line of sight. Maggie’s presence lingers in the house in ways I can’t ignore.
“She is,” I reply.
Roman looks at me then. “And for you.”
I don’t answer, and he doesn’t wait for one.
A minute later, he steps into the waiting SUV. The convoy rolls down the drive and disappears beyond the gates, leaving behind the certainty that whatever is coming for my family has already found the edge of my walls.
I remain beneath the entryway until the last of Roman’s taillights disappear beyond the gates.
Armed patrols continue across the grounds, exterior lights brighten the long drive, and men speak low through earpieces as they take positions near the hedges, doors, and stone pillars. To anyone outside these walls, the house would appear secure enough to survive a siege.
It is secure.
That’s what makes the shelter attack so difficult to accept.
The failure didn’t happen in my home. It happened in public, in a place built to welcome strangers and wounded animals rather than to keep danger out.
Maggie lives in that world. Ivy walked into that world because I allowed myself to believe enough men and enough planning could make it safe.
Irina paid for that belief with her life.
I drag a hand down my face and turn toward the house. The foyer has mostly emptied by the time I step inside. Mrs. Bennett stands near the staircase speaking with one of the younger housekeepers, and both women straighten when they notice me. I nod once and continue upstairs.
As I approach Ivy’s room, amber light spills through the partially open door. Maggie’s voice reaches me before the room does, low and gentle as she reads the final pages of a story I’ve heard a hundred times and never once cared about as much as I do tonight.