Chapter 11 - Anja #2
The secondary ledger. Every coded contact I could reach without setting off any obvious alerts. The progress bar crawled like it was moving through molasses. 34%. 61%. 87%. Sweat prickled along my spine.
Every creak in the building made my stomach lurch. If he came back early…
At 100%. I yanked the drive free, shoved it deep into the waistband of my sleep shorts, and shut the laptop exactly as I’d found it. My legs felt liquid as I hurried down the hallway toward Fadir’s guest room, where I was staying.
I am only three steps from safety when the elevator dinged.
Fadir stepped into the apartment, loosening his tie, hair slightly tousled from the night air. His eyes landed on me immediately. They are sharp, assessing, and highly suspicious. The air thickened until I could barely breathe.
“Anja?” His voice is smooth on the surface, but the blade underneath it pressed against my ribs. “What are you doing up at this hour?”
His skepticism is obvious, and when he begins closing the distance between us, I'm sure I can feel my heart beating out of my chest.
I forced a sleepy, sheepish smile and rubbed one eye like I’d just woken. My voice came out small and tired, the same tone I’d used for months to keep him believing I am harmless. “Couldn’t sleep again. I'm just getting some water from the kitchen. The job hunt stuff keeps spinning in my head.”
I gestured vaguely toward the dimly lit kitchen, praying the lie would land. The USB felt like a burning coal against my skin, hidden, but screaming its presence with every heartbeat.
He crossed the room slowly, eyes narrowing as they flicked toward the study door, which was still closed, lights off, exactly as he’d left it. “Early night for you to be wandering around. You’ve been… quiet lately. Jumpy. If there’s something you’re not telling me, Anja…”
He let the unfinished threat hang between us, heavy with all the ways he could make my prison feel smaller. His hand lifted, hovering near my cheek, not quite touching but close enough to remind me he could.
I leaned into the space instead, letting my forehead rest against his chest the way I used to when I still believed he was my savior. The move felt calculated now, practiced.
“I'm... I’m just tired, Fadir. That’s all. Thinking about… my past, my future again. What if I have to crawl back there? Everyone knowing I failed… it scares me. I hate feeling like I have nothing left.”
Vulnerability. The one card he always fell for. He loved being the strong one who kept me from that fate. His posture softened instantly, arms coming around me in that familiar possessive hold, fingers stroking my hair.
“Shh. You’re not going anywhere. This is your home now. I’ve got you, baby. No one’s taking you from me.” His voice dropped into the soothing register he used when he thought he was being kind. “Go back to bed. I’ll bring you some tea in a minute.”
I nodded against his shirt, relief crashing through me so hard my knees nearly buckled. He bought it.
Barely.
One more minute in that study, and he would have walked in on me at the laptop. One suspicious glance at the screen and everything would have ended that night, and probably with his hand raised the way it finally was in the warehouse.
I slipped back into the guest room on trembling legs and hid the USB inside an old tampon box at the back of the bathroom cabinet. Somewhere he would never look. Then I lay awake until dawn, staring at the ceiling, the fear still coiled tight in my chest like a living thing.
He had brought me the tea he promised, and his eyes were full of suspicion. But I quickly feigned being tired, and he left me alone.
I hadn't realized how close I had come to possibly the end of my life that night.
Now, months later, I sit in Alexey’s quiet library, the same USB drive already doing its work somewhere in the system. Justice unfolding in clean, surgical lines instead of panicked midnight thefts.
I close the book on my lap and press my fingers to my eyes.
The fear from that night still lingers under my skin, a bruise that hasn’t fully faded. But so does the quiet thrill of knowing I am the one who started pulling the threads that are unraveling Fadir’s entire world right now.
Across the hall, the man who actually pulled me out of that situation sleeps behind a closed door, never once crossing the line we drew.
Some nights, that feels more dangerous than any suspicion Fadir ever carried.
***
I know that giving Alexey the USB with Fadir’s information pleased him and perhaps earned him more trust.
He has not said much when I slid the small black drive across the marble island this morning. He remained quiet.
“This changes everything,” and a nod of approval that felt heavier than any praise.
But I saw the shift in his eyes. The tension in his shoulders eased fractionally.
The way he looked at me a little longer, a little softer, as if I had handed him not just data, but proof that I am truly on his side.