2. Alexei
“What do you mean he escaped?” The words come out sharper than I intend, but I don’t bother softening them.
Elena instinctively steps closer, her hand sliding to my forearm, grounding me.
“Exactly what I said,” Dad says grimly. “Wendell escaped.”
“I thought our prison security was top of the line,” Elena says, calm, curious, not accusatory, but I still feel my muscles tense beneath her fingers.
I am not good at masking my feelings when her safety may be in jeopardy, even worse if I suspect that one of my men might be responsible.
“May I?” Dad gestures toward the laptop resting on Elena’s smaller desk.
We follow him across the room. He opens the device, pulling up the live feed from the high-security wing, where the most dangerous prisoners are kept.
Those who’ve committed acts too vile to imagine.
People like Wendell, who once aided Elena’s grandfather by feeding him information and nearly forcing her to sacrifice her life to save Hannah and the people of Zurdonia.
My hand curls into a fist at my side as the feed loads.
Dad presses play. On the screen, there is a long hallway, empty, and silent. In the cell, Wendell sits motionless on his cot, wearing that same infuriating expression, proud, superior, untouched by guilt.
“What am I supposed to be looking at?” I demand, peering closer.
“Exactly what I asked when the guards went to deliver his meal and found the cell empty,” Dad says, his tone clipped.
Elena narrows her eyes, rewinds the footage, and hits play again. Then she pauses, pointing toward a faint distortion near the corner of the stone wall.
“Someone with exceptional tech tampered with the feed,” she says in a steady, low voice. “You see that?”
Dad and I lean forward together. The moment I focus on that corner of the screen, I see it.
“They looped the feed,” I confirm, feeling my jaw clench.
“They didn’t account for the sun,” Elena adds, pointing toward the faint shimmer at the edge of the frame. In one frame, the shadow exists, and in the next, it is gone, but the sun remains. “There’s a shadow there. This wasn’t an accident or a glitch. Someone was there.”
Dad’s eyes narrow. “Hacking our feed is one thing, but getting past our patrols and guards?—”
“Someone did,” I seethe, the words coming out low and sharp.
Elena straightens beside me, her brows pulling together, that look that always makes my chest tighten. It’s the one telling me she’s not sure she feels safe.
“You don’t think Wendell’s working with someone inside, do you? Another mole?”
Dad and I exchange a glance. The thought alone sends a cold weight settling in my gut.
It had been bad enough when Kravino and Wendell betrayed the crown.
After Ivan took Elena, we’d overhauled everything, constant reviews, lie detection, psychological testing.
I even enforced mandatory two-week leaves for all agents, giving us time to monitor their activity without interference.
Every access point was logged and locked during that time.
“I doubt it,” Dad says firmly. “Since Alexei and I implemented the new measures, betrayal would be almost impossible.”
“Almost,” I mutter to myself, stroking my chin as I gaze at the screen.
Dad purses his lips. “No, not impossible. Already, Mitchell is dissecting the footage to determine how they infiltrated our systems.”
“Has anyone gone into Wendell’s cell since he escaped?” I ask.
Dad shakes his head. “No. I gave strict orders for everyone to stay out.”
“I want to go.”
He gives a small, knowing smile. “I figured as much. Hence my interruption.” His smirk flicks between Elena and me.
I let my breath out, turning to her. This wasn’t how I envisioned tonight, dinner, quiet conversation, maybe a rare few hours where duty didn’t reach our doorstep.
But Elena only smiles, soft and sure, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “Go,” she says. “There’s no one better than you.”
I slip an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close for a heartbeat longer than I should. “I’ll figure this out, I promise. I’ll find him.”
She meets my gaze, her faith shining so clearly it nearly undoes me. “I know,” she whispers.
The moment I arrive at the prison, I go directly to the control room.
Every monitor, every feed, every alert light gleams back at me, untouched.
Nothing appears tampered with, which only confirms what I already suspect.
Whoever helped Wendell escape had access to tech far beyond anything that should have bypassed Mitchell’s firewalls.
The metallic hum of the corridors follows me as I enter the maximum-security wing. The worst of the worst are locked down here, men and women who’ve long since stopped pretending to be human. Wendell’s cell sits at the end, sealed tight. Everything seems in order. Too in order.
“Open the cell,” I relay through my earpiece.
Dad’s voice crackles back. “There’s nothing here, son. Mitchell confirmed it was a coordinated breach, a virus, sophisticated enough to slip past his systems. He’s still running diagnostics.”
I step inside, scanning the cell: a narrow bed bolted to the wall, a desk, a toilet in the corner. Everything is sterile. Controlled.
“What about communications?” I ask. “Visitor logs?”
Dad comes and stands beside me, his boots making soft echoes on the concrete. “He hasn’t had one in over three months. The last visitor was Lady Camille.”
Of course it was. That’s not surprising, but it could be useful. Lady Camille and Wendell had always been inseparable in their disdain for Elena. When Elena returned to Zurdonia, Lady Camille made it her mission to undermine her at every turn, alongside Wendell.
Following Wendell’s betrayal, I dug into Lady Camille’s records, her meetings, her accounts. No mention of contact with Wendell. Nothing to suggest she’d been part of his plot. But maybe I missed something.
“I want her brought in for questioning. Any other visitors?”
Dad shakes his head. “None. The rest of the nobles and Popova family members have kept their distance.”
I make a slow circuit of the cell. The mattress is thin, the type that doesn’t hide anything, but I lift it anyway. Empty. I let it fall with a dull thud. “How many times did Lady Camille visit?”
“Twice. The guards said she complained the whole time. Said the place should be ‘more accommodating.’”
“This isn’t a bed-and-breakfast,” I mutter, moving toward the desk. There’s a single book on it. “I also want the videos of their meetings.”
“They’re already being pulled,” confirms Dad.
I run my fingers over the book’s worn cover, flip through a few pages. “Seems Wendell was brushing up on our laws. Probably planning an appeal.” I set it back on the desk, then pause.
A stone in the wall catches my eye, just slightly off-center. Uneven. Recently disturbed.
I pull the desk out of the way. Dust and grit spill to the floor where the stone’s been pried loose. There’s no way Wendell could’ve done this with the limited tools he had. Even the utensils here are dull enough to bend before they’d cut.
I hear Dad’s voice behind me. “Find something?”
I pull the switchblade from my waistband and flick it open. The blade slips into the corner of the stone until it wiggles free. I pull it out and reach into the gap. My fingers brush something dry and rough, like paper. I yank it free.
A folded note.
I hold it up. “Wendell isn’t exactly subtle.”
“Cocky,” Dad mutters. “Didn’t have much time to run, but stuck around long enough to leave you a message.”
I unfold the paper. The handwriting is jagged, familiar.
I knew you would find this. Always the perceptive agent.
We will meet again soon, Alexei. You and that wife of yours.
—W.
My chest tightens as I hand the note to Dad. He reads it and glances up, his eyes grim. “He’s coming for you. And for Elena.”
A cold surge of protectiveness slams through me. Ivan’s dead. His empire is gone. His clients scattered. Elena was supposed to be safe.
“Not a word of this to Elena,” I order.
Dad scoffs. “Son, you can’t keep this from her.”
“She’s got enough to deal with. The last thing she needs is another ghost haunting her.”
“She has a right to know.”
“It’s a security measure,” I snap. “I’ll handle it.”
He lets out a hard exhale. “Your mother would have had my head if ever I kept anything like this from her.”
He’s right. Elena would too. But she’s finally healing, finally sleeping without nightmares. Her focus is back on rebuilding, on her people. On us. I can’t take that from her. Not yet.
“For now,” I direct softly. “Until we know more.”
“Know more about what?”
Elena’s voice paralyzes me. She steps into view from the hallway, the light catching her hair and turning it honey and chestnut, her expression resolute. Dad quickly folds the note and pockets it, glaring at me as he does.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, ignoring her question.
“I want to help.” She taps her temple. “I think I can help.”
Dad watches me. I can already feel the argument forming on his tongue. But before he can say anything, something beeps on the handheld device in Dad’s hands. His brows furrow together for a moment before he hands the device to me. The feed lasts barely an instant.
A shadow. A movement.
And Wendell’s face… smiling.
Then the feed cuts to static.