Chapter 35 | Kincade
As the sun set, we drove back to the safe house in silence.
She sat in the passenger seat, her hands fisted in her lap, staring straight ahead. Her face was pale. Her body rigid and coiled tight like any moment she could snap.
Traffic folded around us. Istanbul moved on, indifferent. I kept my focus on the road while my mind catalogued the desk, the laptop, the images.
He’d kept the necklace like a trophy. My grip tightened on the wheel. He expected her to come to him for it. So he could “return” it like a favor. His obsession with her was proof of ownership. Even to his last breath, he thought she belonged to him.
The manor bothered me more. Not the surveillance—that was expected. If someone wanted to map her, they’d start there. With the people she loved. With routines and patterns. Like we’d done when we were hunting him.
But the interiors.
Bedrooms. The kitchen. The rooms she hadn’t entered in decades.
That meant access. That meant time.
Vormund wouldn’t have done the surveillance himself. He’d have sent someone. Someone who was still out there.
We parked, exited the car, climbed the stairs to the fourth floor.
She went in first, dumped her pack on the floor.
Moved into the deepening shadows of the small apartment to the balcony doors and flung them open.
Salty sea air swept inside as she stepped out, her hands gripping the railing as she peered out at the distant Marmara Sea glistening in the final rays of the day.
I waited for her to say something. But she didn’t. She stood there with her back straight and the wind fluttering through her hair.
She was processing. I didn’t interrupt.
The lights remained off. The room settled around us.
I gave her space for a long moment, then stepped out behind her. Waited.
“The programming didn’t kick in,” she said at last. Her voice was strained. She knew I was there. She didn’t turn.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you controlled it.”
“No,” she countered. “Because I wanted it. Me. Not the programming.”
She drew in a breath that trembled despite her effort to steady it.
“I wanted him dead,” she said. “I wanted to watch it end.”
She turned. The fading light washed over her face, stripped bare of armor. Fear surfaced there. Something I hadn’t seen since we left the facility.
“But it didn’t end, did it?” she said. “It’s not over.”
“No,” I said.
She sucked in a breath, turned away. I moved to stand next to her. She was still rigid, full of tension.
“But now we know what we’re dealing with,” I said.
“The monster is bigger than we thought.” Her gaze drifted from the distance to me. “Those pictures—”
Her face paled. “That’s how they did it.”
My blood went cold.
“They weren’t just watching,” she said, voice tight. “They were mapping me. Tuning me to you.”
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t afford to—not if I wanted her to keep going.
“I need to know if they’re okay,” she said. “I need you to take care of that for me.”
Her family.
“I will.”
I would burn down every shadow he’d left behind if that’s what it took.
I was already making plans to contact Silas, to get the Quiet Watch inside. To find out if there was more damage than we knew—bugs, cameras, whatever. My gut told me nothing there was safe. That someone was still watching, and they were closer than either of us knew.
And that meant she couldn’t go home until it was swept clean.
Tension eased out of her shoulders a fraction.
“Do you still want me?” She didn’t look at me when she asked it.
That told me everything.
“Yes,” I said.
I stepped close enough to hear her breath hitch. “I wanted you yesterday. I want you now. And nothing you did today changes that.”
“But I felt nothing. Nothing but satisfaction—”
“You’re not a monster,” I said.
“How do you know?” She turned toward me, her gaze lifting to mine.
“Because you’re asking the question.”
In the deepening twilight, the silver at her throat winked. Without thinking, I reached for her, ran my thumb over it.
Jerusalem felt like a lifetime ago. The shop was tucked down a narrow street I hadn’t intended to walk. I saw it in the window, nestled against white velvet, and stopped without knowing why. A guardian standing behind a woman who didn’t know she was protected.
An impulse. Nothing but a trinket. That’s what I told myself.
I’d given it to her on Christmas. In a quiet moment before the day started.
Just take it, will you? I’d said.
She’d looked at the box like it was poison, her hand shaking when she took it and opened it. And when she looked up at me, her eyes had darkened with something I didn’t want to name.
She’d thanked me. Wore it every day since.
It hadn’t felt like a gift. It felt like a truth. I understood now what that truth was.
“I didn’t give it to you because you needed protecting,” I said.
“Why did you?” Her voice was unsteady.
“Because I chose you. Then. Now.”
Now it was back where it belonged. Against her skin. Where I could see it. Where she could feel its weight and remember she wasn’t alone.
“He kept it,” I said, my thumb still resting against the silver. “Like he thought he’d won something.”
Her hand came up to cover mine. “He didn’t.”
“No,” I agreed. “He lost everything.”
She moved closer, wrapped an arm around my waist, put her head on my chest. I held her. One arm around her so she didn’t feel constricted.
“I wonder if it was the same for my mother,” she said. “If she felt the same as me when she—”
When she killed with a thought. But she didn’t say it. I said nothing. Her mother’s trauma went deeper. She’d lost pieces of herself and was only starting to return to who she was before everything went to hell.
“I wish I could ask her,” she said. “I wish I could tell her I understand now.”
I didn’t answer right away. My mind was already working.
Her mother was back at the manor. Inside the walls that were alive and breathing and watching. Starting to heal and learn her true identity.
Asking her to leave, to travel, to step into uncertainty again—that wasn’t something Anna could do. It didn’t mean it was impossible. It meant it needed to be handled with care.
“I think there’s a way you can,” I said.
She shifted against me, lifting her head enough that I felt her breath whisper across my neck. “How?”
There were ways to move her, to get her out, to meet in a place that was secure. Without ears listening and knowing and planning. A controlled environment where her mother could come to her without being overwhelmed.
“I’ll work on it.”
A small breath of a laugh. “You’re already planning.” Then she rose up, kissed my cheek, whispered, “I trust you.”
And then she slipped away, heading back into the deepening shadows. I listened to her movements. The rustle of fabric. The swish of blankets. When there was silence again, when she’d settled, I pulled the burner phone from my pocket.
Silas answered on the first ring.
“Vormund is dead, but we have another problem,” I said. “The manor isn’t safe.” I quickly told him what we’d found on the laptop.
“What do you need?”
“Send someone you trust from the Quiet Watch. Have him meet with Ophelia only. Then I want a full sweep. Physical, electronic. Every room. Every wall. Every fucking inch of that estate. I want to know how long they’ve been there and what they left behind.”
“How soon?” he asked.
“Yesterday.”
“Understood,” he said.
“And Silas?”
“Aye?”
“If you find anyone still breathing who had a hand in it—”
“Consider it handled.”
I ended the call, stood a moment in the darkness listening to the city breathe.
Whatever Vormund had set into motion hadn’t ended in his death. But it would end. I’d make sure of it.
As I stepped back inside, I listened to her deep breathing. She’d fallen asleep.
Tomorrow, we’d deal with what came next. Munich. The manor. But tonight, I’d let her rest.