19. Sloane
SLOANE
By the time we leave the airfield, I’m so tired that the city outside the window barely registers.
I have seen more of Europe in the last two days than I managed to see during entire stretches of my career, which is ridiculous considering I spent six years flying internationally.
Being cabin crew sounds glamorous until most cities become airport codes, shuttle routes, twenty-hour layovers, and hotel rooms you barely remember because you were too exhausted to do anything except shower and sleep.
I have technically been to Paris more than a dozen times, yet I know Charles de Gaulle better than I know the city itself.
In the last forty-eight hours, however, I have gone from New Jersey to Bucharest, survived a shooting on a Romanian tarmac, spent part of the night in one of the most expensive hotels I have ever seen, and now somehow ended up in Moldova with a man who may or may not still think I helped someone track his aircraft.
At this point, I would happily trade Europe for eight uninterrupted hours in a dark room.
Vadim’s home is about forty minutes outside the center of Chi?in?u, although calling it a house seems deliberately misleading.
The road narrows as we leave the busier parts of the city behind, and eventually high stone walls appear beside us, running far enough in both directions that I initially assume they surround several properties. Then the gates open, and I realize how mistaken I was.
The car passes through two separate security checkpoints before we even reach the main drive.
Armed men inspect the underside of the vehicle at the first, another guard walks a dog around the perimeter at the second, and cameras mounted discreetly among the stone pillars follow us as we continue deeper into the grounds.
I glance toward Camille. She’s staring out of the opposite window with the same expression I probably have.
“This is normal?” I ask Vadim.
“Yes.”
“That answer somehow makes it worse, you know?” I say.
He doesn’t seem bothered.
The main house comes into view beyond a long line of mature trees, and I have to revise my expectations again.
I had imagined something darker. A fortress, perhaps, all black marble and enormous gates designed to remind visitors exactly who lived there.
Instead, the house is old and elegant, built from pale stone with a dark slate roof and tall windows overlooking landscaped grounds.
There are broad terraces running along the rear and vines climbing part of one wing.
The architecture feels European without being ostentatious, large enough to be intimidating but not designed to look like a hotel.
The garden surprises me even more.
There are roses.
Actual roses.
Rows of them stretch beside clipped hedges, and beyond them I can see fruit trees, a greenhouse, and what looks like a small vegetable garden near one of the outbuildings.
It would almost be peaceful if there were not armed men positioned at regular intervals around the property. One of them is standing beside a flower bed holding a rifle.
That ruins the effect slightly.
When the vehicles stop, Vadim gets out first and immediately disappears into a conversation with Anton and two men I have never seen before. Daniel is taken toward another building almost as soon as we arrive.
He notices where they are leading him. “Where exactly am I going?”
Anton answers without slowing. “We have more questions.”
“I answered questions in Bucharest.”
“You will answer some again.”
Daniel looks back toward us with obvious frustration. “This is absurd.”
Nobody appears especially concerned about his opinion.
I watch him disappear through a side entrance with two security men accompanying him.
Camille moves closer to me. “That man scares me.”
I assume she means Anton until I follow her gaze.
Vadim is standing near the steps speaking quietly to one of his men, his face expressionless while the other man listens with the rigid attention people seem to adopt whenever Vadim addresses them.
Yesterday I would have dismissed Camille’s comment.
I spent most of the first flight thinking he was arrogant, controlling, and unnecessarily rude, but I also saw the man who defended me from Warren, carried me when I was shaking, told me about being locked in a cellar as a child, and let me see flashes of humor he rarely seems to show anyone else.
Now I’m not entirely sure which version I misjudged.
Maybe both.
“He can be…” I search for a word that doesn’t sound ridiculous considering everything that has happened. “Intense.”
Camille looks at me. “That’s one way to describe it.”
I almost laugh.
A woman in her fifties meets us at the entrance, though I’m not sure whether she’s a housekeeper, manager, relative, or simply another person who understands Vadim’s world better than I do.
She shows Camille and me upstairs while two members of staff bring whatever essentials were arranged after our luggage remained behind on the original aircraft.
My room overlooks the rear gardens. It’s larger than my apartment bedroom and probably contains more expensive furniture than everything I own combined, but I barely register the carved wardrobe or upholstered chairs because the bed looks enormous and soft enough to swallow me whole.
Camille appears in my doorway ten minutes later after changing into clothes someone apparently found in her size. “I’m going to sleep.”
“That sounds intelligent.”
She lingers. “Are you okay?”
The question catches me off guard. “I think so.”
She studies my face. “You have had a very strange first private assignment.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I promise they’re not normally like this.”
“I’m relieved.”
She manages a tired smile before returning to her room.
I should sleep too. Instead, after twenty minutes of lying on the bed staring at the ceiling, I discover that exhaustion and actual sleep are apparently no longer connected.
My body feels heavy, but my mind refuses to stop.
I think about everything that happened yesterday—especially Hale’s body dropping on the ground like a fly. I had never seen a man die before. Then everything that transpired in the hospital…and after that, Vadim’s mouth on mine.
That last thought is particularly unhelpful.
I get up. Fresh air seems safer than continuing that line of thought, so I pull on the sweater and pants someone left for me and head downstairs.
Nobody stops me. They watch me, though.
I feel it as I cross the rear terrace and step into the garden. A security camera turns almost imperceptibly above one doorway, and two men near the far wall track my movement before returning to their conversation.
Something about their presence is so creepy and unsettling.
I walk farther into the garden anyway. The house becomes quieter behind me, and for the first time since the flight began yesterday, there are no engines, sirens, gunshots, arguments, or men asking questions.
Only birds somewhere in the trees and the soft crunch of gravel beneath my shoes.
Then something moves behind a hedge. I stop.
A small head appears.
A little girl looks at me.
She can’t be older than six or seven, with dark hair tied into two messy braids and a bright yellow cardigan that seems almost aggressively cheerful against everything else I’ve seen on this property.
We stare at each other.
Then she asks, “Who are you?”
“Sloane.”
She considers this, clutching a battered stuffed rabbit beneath one arm. “Are you staying here?”
“For a little while, I think.”
Her eyes move over me with the blunt curiosity only children seem capable of getting away with. “You came with Uncle Vadim?”
That catches me. “Uncle Vadim?”
She nods. “He’s my uncle.”
Of all the things I expected to find at Vadim Chernovar’s heavily guarded compound, a small child wandering through the garden with a stuffed rabbit was nowhere near the list.
“What’s your name?”
“Anya.”
The rabbit’s ear is nearly falling off, and one of Anya’s shoelaces is untied.
“You should fix that before you trip.”
She looks down. Then back at me. “You do it.”
Apparently we are already taking orders from each other.
I crouch and tie the lace. “Better?”
She inspects my work seriously. “Yes.”
“Glad I passed.”
She looks toward the house. “Uncle Vadim gives bad presents.”
That’s not what I expect.
“What kind of bad presents?”
“Big ones.”
I almost laugh. “That sounds terrible.”
“He bought me a horse.”
I blink. “A horse?”
“My mama said no.”
For some reason, that makes Vadim more understandable and less understandable at the same time. I picture him standing in some stable deciding a six-year-old needs a horse because moderation apparently doesn’t exist in his life.
“Did you want the horse?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m afraid I’m on your side.”
Anya smiles. It’s the first completely normal thing I’ve seen since arriving.
I look around the garden again, at the toys half-hidden beside the terrace, the small bicycle leaning against a wall, the chalk drawings near one set of steps.
I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect children.
I didn’t expect evidence that ordinary family life exists inside a place guarded like a military compound.
Then a scream tears through the quiet so violently that every thought in my head disappears at once, the sound too raw and terrified to be mistaken for surprise, anger, or anything remotely harmless.
Anya freezes beside me with the stuffed rabbit clutched against her chest, and another blood-curdling scream comes from somewhere inside the house.