11. The exit strategy is becoming complicated. （Tamara）
THE EXIT STRATEGY IS BECOMING COMPLICATED. (TAMARA)
By nine-thirteen, I lose my first client.
Not officially. Officially, Amelia Healy sends an impeccably polite email explaining that she’d like to “reassess project timing.”
In luxury-client language, that translates to: I don’t trust shady business near my penthouse renovation.
I read it twice, though the meaning is clear the first time.
The city hums beyond the windows. Beside me, the second monitor whirs softly.
My drafting tablet glows under the architectural lamp Aleksander’s people brought over from the studio two days ago.
Fabric samples are spread across the massive desk beside customs reports and shipping manifests someone forgot to remove from the far end.
My workspace and his are beginning to bleed into each other.
Another email appears. One of my contractors asking whether invoices should still route through the studio account or through my office manager “given the recent changes.”
There it is: the paperwork version of captivity.
I lean back in Aleksander’s chair and make myself stop reading. The business matters. Not only because it is mine, but because it is liquid, portable, and clean.
Enough to disappear with, if I ever had to. A part of me always kept that option open.
A knock sounds lightly against the open study door. Aleksander steps inside already dressed for the day in charcoal and black, coffee in one hand, phone in the other. He takes one look at me.
“What happened?”
I almost say nothing. Around him, that instinct is becoming dangerous. He notices too much.
“I lost a client.”
He crosses the room and sets the cup beside my elbow.
“Amelia Healy.”
“You know the project?”
“I know the building.” He reads the email. “She’ll come back.”
I study him. “That was a normal client assessment, right?”
His mouth almost moves. “Yes.”
“That was not reassuring.”
“Then I’ll work on my delivery.”
Despite myself, a quiet laugh slips out. The sound changes the room. I look back at the screen before it becomes something I have to address.
“I need to start meeting clients again. Soon.”
Aleksander stays silent for a moment, thinking.
“The wedding made you visible,” he says finally. “We expected some reaction from the Colombians. We’re still trying to identify where they’re probing.”
I turn toward him slightly. “You say that like I’m a shipping route.”
“In some ways, you are.”
“That’s a horrifying statement.”
He almost smiles, then thinks better of it. God, he’s annoying when he does that.
“The route teams are still clearing movement patterns,” he continues. “Transportation’s ready. Site security mostly is. But I don’t want you moving until we finish mapping exposure points.”
I resent the explanation for being reasonable.
“I can’t disappear from my business for weeks.”
“You won’t.”
The certainty in his voice pulls my attention back to him fully.
“I built this business from scratch,” I say quietly.
He doesn’t argue. “I know.”
Mark’s name rises in my throat. I want to tell him the real reason I said yes.
“One client already got nervous,” I say instead. “The others will follow.”
He sets his phone down on the desk beside the fabric samples. “I’ll make sure they keep associating your name with competence instead of chaos.”
I blink at him. “That sounds disturbingly corporate for a bratva boss.”
“We prefer ‘organized.’”
I sigh, not quite able to laugh at the joke. “I’m serious, Aleksander.”
“So am I.”
Outside, rain streaks softly across the glass, Manhattan blurred silver and gray beneath the clouds.
“I’m putting full protocols in place,” he says after a moment. “Rotating vehicles. Site coverage. Route clearance. You’ll be able to move normally again.”
“Normally.”
“As close to it as possible.”
“How long until that happens?”
“A few days.”
Aleksander notices the shift in my expression. “You thought I was going to keep you here indefinitely.”
“You haven’t exactly explained the long-term vision.”
“The long-term vision is that you continue having a life.”
The answer comes so simply, it catches me off guard. Men in his position don’t say “continue having a life” as if some version of it could exist outside of the marriage.
I imagine it before I can stop myself, a life where the worst thing that happens on a Tuesday is a burned rice pan and his dry commentary about prison food.
The thought terrifies me immediately because none of it changes the actual plan.
Find Mark.
Get him back.
Leave.
Three steps. I’ve been counting them since the cathedral.
But somewhere between the study, the kitchen, and the dishwasher humming in the dark, the plan has started to feel like something I may have to force myself to follow.
I pick up a fabric sample from the desk. Put it down again. Remind myself what this is.
Aleksander checks his watch.
“I have meetings most of the day,” he says. “Nikolai’s team should finish the remaining clearances by tomorrow afternoon.”
“So I’m being professionally reintroduced into society.”
“Essentially.”
“You make it sound like I’m a high-risk museum artifact.”
He glances toward the material boards spread across the desk.
“With your clients?” he says calmly. “Close enough.”
And annoyingly, I smile. Just barely. Just once.