23. Sloane
SLOANE
By the fourth day at Vadim’s house, I have developed a plan.
It’s not a particularly sophisticated plan, but sophistication has become less important to me than simply getting out.
Vadim has mostly left me alone since the morning after we slept together, which should have been a relief considering how complicated everything between us has become, except his absence somehow irritates me almost as much as his constant presence used to.
I see him occasionally at meals or crossing one of the corridors with Anton beside him, always talking about something that ends the moment I get close enough to hear, but he doesn’t come looking for me, doesn’t drag me into another interrogation, and certainly doesn’t mention what happened between us.
If anything, he has become painfully polite.
I hate it.
I hate that after spending an entire night with his hands and mouth all over me, he can look across a breakfast table and ask whether I slept well in the same tone he might use with a visiting accountant.
More importantly, I’m still not allowed to leave.
Nobody calls it that, of course. There’s always some careful explanation about security, the investigation, or the fact that whoever used my bag may still know who I am, but the gates remain guarded and every vehicle leaving the property has a security detail attached to it.
So I’ve started paying attention.
The eastern garden gate opens every morning when deliveries arrive.
The kitchen staff receive produce shortly after eight.
There’s a smaller service road beyond the greenhouse that appears to join the main road several hundred yards from the primary entrance, and unlike the front gate, it’s usually watched by only one guard.
I’m not planning to disappear forever. I just want to reach Chi?in?u, find a hotel, contact the American embassy if necessary, and make decisions without Vadim hovering somewhere in the background deciding what’s safest for me.
Camille wants no part of it. When I mention the possibility of leaving, carefully and without explaining exactly how, she looks at me as though I suggested we parachute from the roof. “Sloane, absolutely not.”
“We can’t stay here indefinitely.”
“It has been four days.”
“That’s four days longer than I intended to be in Moldova.”
Camille folds her arms around herself and looks toward the tall windows of the sitting room.
She has improved since Bucharest, but not by much.
Sudden noises still make her flinch, she rarely walks through the gardens alone, and she has begun checking the locks on her bedroom door before sleeping even though this is probably one of the most heavily protected houses in Eastern Europe.
“I feel safer here,” she admits.
I understand that. After Hale and the tarmac, part of me feels safer here too.
That’s precisely what makes it dangerous. Safety can become comfortable enough that you stop noticing someone else controls the doors.
“I’m not asking you to come with me.”
She looks horrified. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
I shrug. “At this point I’m not sure what it is you want. I’m only saying I need to know whether I actually have the choice Vadim keeps insisting I have.”
Camille glances toward the hallway as though simply saying his name too loudly might summon him. “I wouldn’t test him.”
That is where our reactions differ. Everything in me wants to test him.
Daniel seems like the more useful person to talk to. I find him that afternoon near the rear terrace, sitting alone with a cup of coffee while one of Vadim’s security men stands far enough away to pretend he’s not monitoring him.
Daniel looks worse than he did on the flight here. Not physically. He has slept, shaved, and changed into clothes someone provided, but there’s a nervousness in him that wasn’t there before, as though every conversation now requires him to calculate what information might be used against him.
“Can I sit?”
He looks up quickly. “Of course.”
I take the chair across from him.
For several seconds, neither of us says anything.
“How long are they keeping you?” I ask.
His mouth tightens. “Apparently until Mr. Chernovar is satisfied I had nothing to do with what happened.”
“You didn’t.”
“That’s what I keep telling them.”
“They must believe you by now.”
Daniel glances toward the guard before lowering his voice. “Belief is apparently not enough around here.”
I know exactly what he means.
“Have they asked you about Hale?”
“Constantly.”
“What sort of questions?”
His eyes flick toward me. “Why?”
“I’m curious.”
“You should probably stop being curious.”
The answer surprises me.
Daniel sees that. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly.
“I just mean that everyone here pays attention to everything. I’ve been questioned by Anton three times, then Marek, then another man whose name I still don’t know.
They ask the same questions in slightly different ways and wait to see whether my answers change. ”
“You seem nervous.”
“I am nervous.”
His honesty makes me smile slightly. “At least one of us admits it.”
“You aren’t?”
“Not really.”
He looks at me as though he can’t decide whether that makes me brave or stupid.
Possibly both.
Before I can ask anything else, he stands suddenly. “I should go.”
“You just got here.”
“I remembered something.” He takes his coffee with him and leaves so quickly that I watch him for several seconds. Skittish is the only word for it.
I file that away.
Later, I find Anya in the garden again. This time, she’s sitting beneath one of the trees with Boris the rabbit beside her and several colored pencils spread around a sketchbook.
She looks up when I approach. “You came back.”
“I live here now, apparently.”
She doesn’t understand the sarcasm, which is probably healthy.
“I drew Boris.” She holds up the picture.
It’s mostly yellow, despite Boris being brown.
“He looks excellent.”
“He’s a king.”
“That explains the crown.”
She moves over on the bench without asking whether I want to sit.
I do.
For the next twenty minutes, Anya tells me everything important in her life, including which cook gives her extra chocolate, which security guard is afraid of frogs, and why one of Vadim’s dogs isn’t allowed inside the house anymore.
I find myself relaxing despite everything.
There’s something reassuring about how completely normal Anya is.
She doesn’t know that men were shooting at her uncle several days ago.
She doesn’t care what the Chernovar Bratva controls or who Viktor Petrov is.
Her greatest current problem is that Boris needs a new ear and nobody will let her use the sewing machine alone.
“Uncle Vadim can fix it,” she says.
“Can he sew?”
She thinks about that. “No.”
“Then perhaps we should find someone else.”
“He can make people do things.”
That makes me laugh. “Yes. I have noticed.”
Anya grins.
Then a voice cuts across the garden. “Anya.”
I recognize Nadia immediately. She’s walking toward us from the terrace, and the expression on her face makes it very clear that she is not pleased to find me sitting beside her daughter.
Anya’s smile fades. “Mama.”
“I told you not to wander off.”
“I didn’t.”
“You were supposed to stay near the terrace.”
“I’m in the garden.”
Nadia reaches us and looks down at her. “Go inside.”
Anya glances at me.
Nadia notices. “Now.”
Something in me tightens.
Anya gathers her pencils slowly.
“You don’t have to talk to her like she did something wrong,” I say.
Nadia’s gaze snaps to me. “I was speaking to my daughter.”
“I know.”
“Then perhaps allow me to parent her.”
There has been an edge to every interaction we’ve had since I arrived, but until now I have ignored it because this is her home and I’m the stranger Vadim brought into it under extremely questionable circumstances.
Today, I’m tired.
“What exactly is your problem with me?”
Nadia goes still. Anya looks between us.
“Sloane,” Nadia says coldly, “this is not an appropriate conversation to have in front of a child.”
“Then let her go inside.”
Nadia’s mouth tightens. “Anya, inside.”
This time Anya gathers Boris and the sketchbook and heads toward the house without arguing. I wait until she’s far enough away that she can’t hear us.
Then I look back at Nadia. “You have disliked me since the first time you saw me, and I would genuinely like to know why.”
“I don’t dislike you.”
“That is a terrible lie.”
Her eyes narrow. “You are very direct.”
“I have had a very long week.”
“So have we.”
“I didn’t bring armed men to your house.”
“No, apparently you only brought them to my brother’s aircraft.”
So, he has told her about it. Now I need to figure out what exactly.
I stand. “I didn’t know there was a tracker in my bag.”
“So Vadim says.”
The phrasing catches my attention. “So Vadim says?”
“He has become remarkably willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
I stare at her. “You think I’m involved.”
“I think my brother has survived this long because he doesn’t allow women to distract him from obvious danger.”
There it is. Not exactly what I expected.
I fold my arms. “And you think I’m distracting him.”
Nadia laughs quietly, without humor. “You arrived four days ago and he has already moved you into his home, cancelled your departure, put half his security team on your problem, and apparently forgotten that he normally has better judgment.”
Heat creeps into my face. I suddenly understand. This isn’t only about the tracker.
I look at her more carefully. “He brought me here because he still doesn’t entirely trust me, so if you imagine I somehow fluttered my eyelashes and convinced him to lose his mind, you’re giving me far more influence than I actually have.”
Nadia studies my face. “And yet you slept with him.”
My stomach drops. I say nothing.
Her expression changes just enough to confirm she already knew the answer, without me having to say it out loud.
“You think I’m his mistress.”
Nadia’s expression tells me I’ve finally caught up. “I don’t particularly care what word you use.”
For a second, I’m too stunned to answer.
Then, despite myself, I almost laugh. “That’s what this is about?”
“This is about my brother.”
“No, apparently this is about who you think your brother is sleeping with.”
Her jaw tightens. “You don’t know him.”
“Neither do you, apparently, if you think anyone can make Vadim do something he doesn’t want to do.”
That stops her.
I don’t know why I’m defending him.
Nadia looks at me. “I think Vadim has spent his entire life knowing that attachment makes people vulnerable, and I think you arrived at precisely the wrong time.”
The words hit harder than I expect. Not because she’s accusing me, but because somewhere beneath all the hostility, I hear fear.
Nadia is afraid for him.
I look toward the house. For the first time since she approached, my anger eases slightly. “I’m not trying to hurt your brother.”
Her expression remains guarded. “I hope not.”
She turns toward the house. I watch her leave, my irritation still simmering but mixed now with something else.
Vadim’s mistress.
The idea should be ridiculous.
Temporary sex with a man who still suspects me of being involved in an assassination attempt does not qualify as a relationship, and sleeping with him once doesn’t give me any claim on him.
Still, I can’t stop thinking about Nadia’s words.
Attachment makes people vulnerable.
The uncomfortable part is realizing that I’m no longer certain she was talking only about Vadim.