24. Vadim
VADIM
By the fifth day, I’ve learned that Sloane is very good at disappearing without technically going anywhere.
She still eats in the house, still walks through the gardens, still spends time with Camille and occasionally Anya, but whenever I enter a room she seems to have just left it, and whenever I ask someone where she is, the answer is vague enough to make me wonder whether the entire household has quietly agreed to help her avoid me.
At first, I let her. There are more important things to handle, or at least that’s what I tell myself while Anton works through airport records, Marek traces the staffing chain, and Iosef keeps digging into the altered payment that should never have been released from one of my companies.
We are closer to understanding how someone used Sloane than we were several days ago, but not close enough.
Hale’s involvement complicates everything because a dead man can’t explain why he accessed the surveillance system, whether he planted the tracker himself, or whether somebody simply paid him to erase the evidence after another person did it.
The payment into Sloane’s account looks increasingly deliberate, but nobody has managed to identify the person who changed the payroll amount without relying on stolen credentials.
Every answer produces two more questions.
And through all of it, Sloane stays away from me.
By late afternoon, that becomes unacceptable. I check the library first because I have seen her reading there twice, then the small sitting room near the west hall where Camille spends most of her time. Neither of them is there.
The kitchen is empty except for two members of staff.
The rear garden has Anya’s toys scattered near the terrace but no Sloane.
I find my steps getting more and more urgent.
That’s when I realize the reaction is disproportionate. She can’t simply walk off the estate without someone seeing her. There are guards at every gate. Cameras cover the property. She is safe.
Still, when I reach the eastern corridor and find another empty room, something unpleasant tightens beneath my ribs. I take out my phone.
Anton answers immediately.
“Where is Sloane?” I ask.
There’s a pause.
“I assumed she was with you.”
“She is not.”
“I can check the cameras.”
“Do it.”
I end the call before he can respond. For the next several minutes, I search the house myself, annoyed with the growing sense of urgency because there is no rational reason for it.
She hasn’t been abducted. Nobody has breached the property.
If anything had happened, security would already have called.
Then I step through the glass doors near the rear drawing room and finally see her. She’s standing alone at the far edge of the terrace, leaning against the stone balustrade with both hands wrapped around a mug.
The relief is immediate enough that I resent it.
I slow down before she notices me.
The view beyond her is one of the reasons I kept this property after rebuilding the house.
The land falls away gently from the gardens, revealing vineyards farther down the slope and the distant outskirts of Chi?in?u beneath the late-afternoon light.
The sky is beginning to turn gold near the horizon, and the air smells faintly of grass and damp earth after rain earlier in the day.
Sloane hears me before I reach her. She looks over her shoulder. Whatever expression appears on her face vanishes quickly. “You found me.”
“I was looking.”
“That sounds ominous.”
I stop beside her. “What are you drinking?”
“Tea.”
“You don’t like tea.”
She turns toward me. “How would you know?”
“You complained about it on the flight here.”
“I complain about a lot of things.”
“That is true.”
Her mouth almost curves, but she looks back toward the view instead. For a while, neither of us speaks. It’s strangely peaceful. I rest my forearms against the stone beside her and look toward the vineyards.
“You have been avoiding me.”
She doesn’t bother denying it. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“You really need me to explain?”
“I would prefer to hear you say it.”
She exhales slowly. “You still think I might be involved in whatever happened, and every time I forget that for five minutes, something reminds me.”
“That’s not the same as believing you are guilty.”
“It feels similar from this side.”
I understand that. I don’t know how to make it better without lying.
“We have found more evidence that somebody deliberately manipulated the situation around you.”
She looks at me. “But not enough.”
“No.”
Her gaze returns to the horizon. “I’m beginning to think you’re never going to have enough.”
The possibility bothers me more than I want to admit.
I decide to try something I’m not accustomed to. Honesty.
Not complete honesty. I’m not suicidal.
Enough.
“My father used to say uncertainty was more dangerous than bad news.”
Sloane glances at me. “You talk about your father like you hated him.”
“I did.”
“That sounded simple.”
“It was not.”
She waits.
I know what I’m doing. At least I tell myself I do.
If I give her something personal, perhaps she will stop guarding every answer.
Perhaps vulnerability will make her trust me enough to tell me something she has forgotten or withheld, something that finally explains how someone gained access to her bag.
That’s the justification.
The truth is that I want her to know me.
I dislike that truth more.
“My father built the first version of what I have now,” I say. “Smuggling, protection, customs officials, transportation routes. He was very good at making money and very bad at being a human being.”
Sloane listens without interrupting.
“He believed fear was the only reliable form of loyalty. With employees, with family, with everyone.”
“And you?”
“I learned early that fear works until somebody decides they have less to lose than you think.”
“So you became nicer?”
I look at her.
She smiles faintly. “I’m capable of humor.”
“I’m still gathering evidence.”
That earns something close to a laugh.
I continue, “I rebuilt most of the organization after he died because too much of what he left depended on chaos. I wanted control.”
“And now you have armed men in the garden.”
“Yes.”
“That’s your version of control?”
“It’s one of them.”
She studies my face. “What happened to him?”
“My father?”
She nods.
“He died.”
“That sounded evasive.”
“It was meant to.”
“Did you kill him?”
The directness surprises me.
“No.”
She watches me another second, deciding whether she believes me. “What about your mother?”
“Gone before him.”
“I’m sorry.”
I shrug. “I was not.”
Her expression changes. That answer interests her more than grief would have.
“You really don’t do the expected thing, do you?”
“Neither do you.”
She looks down into her tea. “That depends who you ask.”
She’s quiet for a while, looking out over the gardens, before she asks, “What about Mila?”
I glance at her. “What about her?”
“She barely speaks.” Sloane turns slightly toward me. “I’ve seen her at meals a couple of times, and she always looks like she’s somewhere else. Even Anya changes around her.”
For a moment, I say nothing.
There are things about Mila that don’t belong to me alone, and there are things I have no intention of explaining to Sloane while I still don’t know how much of her I can trust.
“She has some issues,” I say finally.
Sloane waits, clearly expecting more, and finally asks, “What kind of issues?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
Her eyebrows rise. “That sounds compassionate.”
“She has been through enough. Leave it there.”
There must be something in my voice that tells her I’m finished with the subject, because she studies me for another moment before turning back toward the view.
“You have a lot of secrets in this house.”
“Most families do.”
“Not usually this many.”
I don’t answer, and after a while she lets the question go, though I can tell by the way she glances toward the house that she hasn’t forgotten it.
“My sister thinks I’m corrupting you.” The words leave my mouth before I decide whether I should say them.
Sloane goes still. “Nadia spoke to you?”
“No.” I turn toward her fully. “She spoke to you.”
Her silence confirms it.
“What did she say?” I ask.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Sloane.”
She gives me a look. “Don’t start.”
“What did she say?”
“She thinks I’m your mistress.”
I stare at her. For several seconds, I have no response.
Then I laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because Nadia has apparently decided subtlety is unnecessary.
Sloane’s eyes narrow. “I’m glad one of us is entertained.”
“She should not have said anything to you.”
“She said quite a lot.”
“I will speak to her.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“It is.”
She turns toward me. “Why?”
“Because nobody in this house discusses you like that.”
Something changes in her face.
The quiet between us becomes different.
Closer.
Sloane puts the mug down on the stone ledge. “You’ll defend me to your family, but you still won’t let me leave.”
I don’t answer immediately.
She watches me. “That’s what I thought.”
“You are not here because I enjoy keeping you prisoner.”
“That’s comforting.”
“You are here because somebody used your bag to bring armed men to an airfield, and until I know whether you are still in danger, I’m not sending you anywhere unprotected.”
“You mean anywhere you don’t control.”
“Yes.”
She laughs softly and shakes her head. “You really believe that sounds reasonable.”
“I believe it’s safer.”
“For you or for me?”
“Both.”
Her eyes stay on mine. There’s frustration there, but something else beneath it. The same thing that has always been between us.
I step closer.
She notices. “You should probably stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking at me like you’re about to make another bad decision.”
I move closer again. “What if I already decided?”
She doesn’t back away. “That would be very on brand for you.”
My thumb moves slowly along her side, tracing the curve of her waist beneath the fabric, and she still doesn’t step away, which is all the answer I need.
“You have been avoiding me for days,” I say.
“Yes.”
“And now?”