Chapter 20
LEV
Over the next few days, I don’t sleep much. My brain is wired tight. I spend the hours working and planning how best to protect Mari and our child. Now that I care this deeply about her, I won’t risk her safety for anything.
The first order of business is to move Mari to the compound.
She can work from there. I still need her eyes on the books while I hunt the hand that’s been stealing from me.
The city is too exposed. The compound is layered, patrolled, and quiet.
She’ll be able to work and breathe. And I can do the same, knowing she’s safe.
At dawn, I call the grounds chief. I want new cameras installed on the ridge and thermal cameras on the tree line.
We’ll need to replace the south fence runs with newer mesh, add a second gate on the service road, and set a crash bar thirty yards inside.
I want two medics on rotation, one OB nurse on call, and a clinic room stocked by noon.
I tell him to clear the guest wing closest to my room and gut it of anything unnecessary.
She needs a good workstation with plenty of room.
I have the chef draft a simple menu and keep ginger, broth, fruit ice, crackers, and protein options on hand.
The second order of business is to monitor her daily movements until we go.
I split her team into three cars and change the route every day.
There can’t be any patterns to her movement.
I take a page out of the Petrov playbook, having the drivers rotate.
I also make plans for her detail to rotate on a regular schedule, with Thom as the point man.
Elevators are called before she steps into the lobby so she’s never waiting. I add a female guard to the inside team because she prefers that. I tell the guards to give her space unless there’s a hard signal. I don’t want her feeling caged.
I tell her about the move at breakfast. She’s at the table with tea and a notebook. Her laptop is open to a reconciliation she’s been building. I take the chair across from her so I’m not looming.
“We’re going to the compound,” I say. “You’ll work from there until I deem it safe.”
Her chin tips up, and I know she’s got an argument ready.
“When?” she asks.
“As soon as the rooms are ready. Tomorrow, if possible.”
She closes the notebook and looks at me for a long beat.
“I can work from the office. I have everything set up. I don’t want to be a prisoner in your country house.”
“You’re not a prisoner,” I remind her. “This isn’t a request.”
She exhales through her nose. “I have a team here. Files here. My routine here.”
“Your team can call you. Files can be mirrored. Routines can move.”
“Why now?” she asks.
“Because I’m not risking it,” I say. “Not with you. Not with the baby.”
She flinches at that and looks down at the tea.
“I want to keep working. I want to finish the pull on vendor shells. I want to sit with banks if I have to. I’m not sitting in a room while you fight every fire and tell me to be good.”
“You’ll work,” I say. “Nothing stops there.”
She lifts her eyes to mine. “You’re being unreasonable again,” she says. “I understand why my safety matters to you, I really do. But I’m here in your penthouse, I’m driven by your guards, I work at your company. What do you really think is going to go wrong?”
“Everything,” I warn. “Anything that could go wrong will go wrong. Isn’t that some kind of law of physics?”
She cocks her head and shoots me a sarcastic smile. “I’m not sure,” she quips. “I was too busy studying accounting.”
“Well, while you were studying accounting, I was watching people die. So I don’t see any of this as unreasonable.”
“Well, I do,” she says. “And I need you to put a little more faith in me. Or, if not me, put faith in the people you’ve trusted with my care. Do you really think they can’t handle protecting me?”
I mull it over. She has a point. I sip my coffee and think it through. Finally, I land on a compromise we can both live with.
“I can give you a month of controlled movement,” I say.
“That means you can go to the office with a full team, always taking direct routes, no detours. The first hint of a threat and we move that same day. And when you start showing, you go to the compound and don’t leave except for appointments I approve.
If you hate it, you can tell me you hate it. The rule stands.”
She folds her arms, clearly not happy with the compromise. Naturally. “A month?” she asks.
“A month,” I confirm. “If the field goes quiet, or if we manage to weed out the threat, we can reevaluate. If things heat up, though, the clock stops.”
She presses her lips together in a hard line. “I don’t like it,” she says. “What’s to stop you from seeing the smallest inconvenience as a threat?”
“I don’t care if you like it,” I say, ignoring her last question because I can’t answer that fairly. “I care that you’re breathing.”
She looks away, then back. “Fine. A month.”
“It starts today,” I say. “I want you packing after work in case we need to move quickly.”
She mutters something about tyrants and then opens her notebook again. She writes a list and underlines three items. I give her the time. This is the closest I get to compromise.
At ten, I call a meeting. Yuri, Marcus, Pavel, Elyan, and Thom. We keep the door locked and I make them put their phones in a basket.
“You already know the state of things,” I tell them. “I’m adding a new priority. Mari and the baby sit above every other concern. That isn’t up for debate.”
Heads lift. They look at one another. Yuri keeps his eyes on me. He already knows. Marcus and Thom exchange a glance. Pavel watches the screen, reading amounts like they’re people.
Marcus clears his throat. “Family changes the field,” he says, his tone careful.
“It changes everything,” I agree.
“People will test you,” Thom says. “They’ll think you’ve gone soft.”
“They can think whatever they like,” I say. “If someone even flags her on a plan, they’re finished. If anyone inside so much as speaks her name in a way I don’t like, I cut that out before it spreads. If you hear anyone push the idea that a child is a liability, you bring me the name.”
Marcus nods but his mouth tightens. Elyan stares at the floor. Pavel doesn’t react at all. Yuri looks bored, which means he’s with me.
“We’re increasing her protection,” I go on. “The compound is getting upgrades as we speak.”
Then I walk them through the security plan I’ve drawn up to keep her detail locked down tight.
“We’ll need more bodies,” Thom says. “I’m fine running point, but I don’t have the manpower for that much changeover.”
“Get whatever resources you need,” I say. “But I don’t want any rookies near her. Pull from crews we trust. Pay the premium.”
“People are starting to talk,” Marcus cuts in. “Not about Mari. About the restaurant hit and the club hit. You know how it goes. They want to see if you’re spread thin.”
“I’m not,” I say.
“They’ll try to attack you again to prove that,” he says.
“They can try,” I snap. “If they come near her, they don’t breathe again. I will not warn anyone twice.”
He nods but keeps that concern in his eyes. I know it comes from a real place, but I don’t have room for it. Concern only slows me down.
No one argues after that. I set assignments and clocks. I set a schedule for the move and new perimeter checks. I end with the part they don’t want to hear.
“Some of you think a child makes me weak,” I say. “It doesn’t. It makes me faster. If you need proof, test me. You’ll only have one shot.”
Yuri stays when the others file out. I pour water and hand him a glass. He doesn’t touch it.
“You’re running hot,” he says. “But you seem to have a clear head about it all. That’s good.”
“I’m not interested in your speeches today,” I say.
“I don’t have a speech,” he says. “Just a question. Are you sure you want to move to the compound this soon? She’ll fight you.”
“She already fought me,” I reply. “I gave her a month.”
He snorts. “That’s generous of you.”
“It’s reasonable,” I say, borrowing Mari’s word. “She needs the work to feel like herself. I’ll take that from her when I have to. Not before.”
That night I sit with Yuri and watch the feed from the compound.
Teams install the new cameras. The second gate goes in beautifully.
Floodlights illuminate every corner of the exterior.
We’ve set up a room to double as a clinic for now.
An OB nurse sends me a list of supplies she wants. I approve it without asking the price.
At midnight, I’m back at the table with a pen and a yellow pad.
I write out every task I can think of. I’ll have to work with Mari to get the OB appointments scheduled.
I also need my lawyer to draw up legal documents for guardianship, medical access, and changes to my will.
I make a note to ensure cash is stocked at the compound.
Then I start running background checks on the nurse, a few drivers, and the doctor Mari insists on using. The truth is, Yuri or Marcus could handle this, but I won’t risk any gaps. As the saying goes, if you want it done right, do it yourself.
At nearly two in the morning, I sit back and look at my list. I can’t possibly add more to it, yet I still feel like it isn’t enough. What am I missing? What could go wrong?
I’m terrified for them. I’m terrified of losing them. Mari will complain, she’ll say I’m being overprotective and controlling, but she can’t understand how this feels.
When I lost my wife, Tatianna, it was like there would never be anything good in this world again. She was kind and good, and I was young enough and stupid enough to believe that love could conquer anything.
In the end, I failed her. When someone went after me, she got caught in the crossfire and was killed. That was my fault. That bullet had my name on it, and I couldn’t protect her when it mattered most.
I know Mari understands this now. I know she can see that my protectiveness comes from a real place. I also know it’s driving her crazy, and she doesn’t like the rules I’m imposing.
She’ll just have to get over it. And she will.
I know that too. I think she’s starting to feel the same way about me that I feel about her, and if that’s true, she sees that this is a struggle for me too.
Any time I’m away from her, I’m terrified that’s the moment someone takes her away from me forever.
But the most terrifying thing of all is how happy I am with her. She’s brought a lightness to my life that I’ve never experienced before, not even with Tati. She’s bringing our child into the world, which is more joy than I ever expected to have.
And I’ll be damned if I ever let anyone take that away from me.