16. I know she might leave. （Aleksander）
I KNOW SHE MIGHT LEAVE. (ALEKSANDER)
The Antwerp issue resolves itself faster than expected.
I stand in front of the operations wall while shipping routes update across six separate monitors—bonded transit lines, customs clearances, restoration transfers, private collection movement through Brussels and Geneva.
Three weeks ago the Colombians were quietly buying access through shell brokers and compromised freight handlers.
Now shipments are moving cleanly again. Insurance verification restored, storage access stabilized, authentication channels closed.
Kalinin’s information is working.
Igor watches another manifest clear on-screen. “Well. That’s annoying.”
I glance toward him briefly. “Competence bothers you now?”
“No.” He leans back in the leather chair, coffee balanced against his knee. “Being forced to admire David Kalinin bothers me.”
Fair.
Yuri steps farther into the room, tablet in hand. “The Colombians lost another intermediary in Rotterdam overnight. They’re pulling back from the restoration pipeline entirely.”
“They’ll pivot,” I say.
“Of course. But Kalinin’s intelligence closed most of the vulnerabilities before they could establish permanent access.”
Professional, efficient, useful—exactly what the alliance was supposed to be. And all I can think about is Tamara standing in a cathedral looking like she was walking toward an execution.
Igor catches the silence. “You’re doing it again,” he says.
I look back toward the screens. “Doing what?”
“Thinking emotionally in a room designed for logistics.”
I ignore him.
The Antwerp manifests continue updating across the wall. Forged provenance records. False ownership transfers. Shell acquisitions routed through Luxembourg holding companies.
The entire industry runs on controlled narratives. Authenticity is rarely the truth—it’s the version powerful people agree to certify, backed by enough paperwork to make the story permanent.
I’ve built a career understanding that.
The comparison leaves something bitter in my mouth. Because David Kalinin forged his daughter’s reality the same way.
Carefully, legally, permanently enough that nobody questions it. Her studio, her clients, her reputation, her independence—he let her build an entirely separate life, and still kept the ability to destroy it whenever necessary.
“You hate him now,” Igor says.
“He’s useful.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
No, it wasn’t.
Yuri sets another file onto the table. “Kalinin requested updated collector security schedules for the Milan transfers.”
Still working, still delivering, still acting like a civilized businessman instead of a man who weaponized his own daughter’s grief.
I look down at the schedules without really seeing them.
She knows her son lived. She’s known since before the cathedral—that’s what put her there. What she doesn’t have is where he is.
I do.
I know Tamara well enough by now to understand exactly what happens the moment those two pieces connect. She won’t hesitate. She won’t negotiate. She won’t explain herself or ask permission or wait for a better moment.
She’ll take her son and disappear, and she’ll burn whatever she has to on the way out.
Including this.
The rational decision is to keep her contained until the boy is secured on my terms. Control the timeline. Control the information. Control the exit.
As if withholding the truth has not already made the terms mine.
Fifteen years of survival in this world has been built on exactly that logic. But I’m not going to be a man who keeps Tamara small because it’s convenient for him.
“Expand Tamara’s movement clearance,” I say finally.
Igor lets that sit.
“Office too?” Yuri asks.
“Yes.”
“Driver rotation?”
“Permanent.”
“Site coverage?”
“Approved.”
Then Igor says, “That’s not caution anymore.”
I meet his gaze evenly. “It’s correction.”
His expression shifts at that. He knows what I’m giving her. He knows I know what I’m giving her.
Neither of us says it out loud.
The meeting dissolves twenty minutes later into route approvals and collector insurance discussions. By the time I leave the office, Manhattan has disappeared beneath rain and early darkness.
The apartment is warmer when I walk in. I notice it before I’ve taken off my coat. The lighting in the entryway has softened. One of the chairs near the windows is angled differently. Books are stacked beside the sofa instead of perfectly aligned.
Evidence of another person living here. Not passing through.
I don’t examine why I don’t mind.
I loosen my tie slowly as I move toward the study. Tamara is asleep at the desk, one cheek pressed against folded arms beside fabric samples and restoration estimates. Her laptop still glows beneath scattered floor plans. She must have fallen asleep working.
She looks unguarded in a way she never is awake. I stand there looking at the woman slowly making this apartment livable while having no idea her entire life was built on a lie someone else constructed for her.
She’ll find out. Maybe through her own investigation, maybe through someone talking, maybe through something I can’t predict or control. When she does, everything I just signed off on in that room—the clearances, the drivers, the access—becomes the infrastructure of her exit.
I made the decision knowing that. It doesn’t become easier because it’s right.
David Kalinin never needed to control Tamara constantly. He only needed to know he could ruin her life whenever it became useful.
I’m choosing differently.
Even if she uses that choice to leave.