32. Elena
Alexei doesn’t question my schedule outright when he reviews it, but I can’t shake the feeling that doubt lingers beneath his silence.
The suspicion may be unspoken, but it presses on me all the same.
Guilt rises quietly within me, heavy and persistent, because I know I’m taking advantage of the one place that means the most to me.
He leans back in his chair, steeples his fingers, and lets the silence stretch until it feels like a wire pulled tight between us.
“For Youth,” he repeats, scanning the tablet in his hand.
“An hour,” I manage lightly. “The kids haven’t seen me in weeks.”
His gaze lifts, steady and unreadable. The corner of his mouth twitches, not quite a smile. He scrolls once more, then hands the tablet back.
“Braydon and Travis will accompany you while Lance and I work on strategy.”
Of course, he will.
Alexei doesn’t mention the timing. Doesn’t mention the announcement. Doesn’t mention the fact that everyone in this building knows of the danger lurking beyond the gate or that he is likely on borrowed time. But his eyes linger a beat too long, as if he’s searching my face for cracks.
He’s choosing to believe my explanation that this is about damage control to our image and the challenges we’re facing, thanks to Oksana and Wendell. A careful pivot until we have a plan of attack.
I lower my lashes, the picture of composure. “Naturally.”
He smiles at me with a nod. The guilt crawls a little higher into my chest.
He’s already doubled the security details, more than I have ever had before.
An hour later, Hannah and I sit in my office at For Youth, pretending to work.
The walls here are painted in hopeful colors, sunrise yellow, soft blue, but the security camera in the upper corner blinks a steady red, as constant as a pulse. Braydon stands outside the glass door, posture relaxed, eyes anything but, as he scans the space every few seconds.
Hannah flips through a file on her desk. The pages don’t turn.
I skim a report without absorbing a single word. The air feels too thin. My knee bounces once beneath the desk and I still it with my palm.
Across the courtyard, a group of children races past the windows, their laughter carrying faintly through the glass. One of the smaller boys trips, Kendra hauling him upright by the sleeve without breaking stride. Dust rises around their shoes like a halo.
I push to my feet.
“I should say hello,” I murmur, already moving.
Hannah nods, as if this is spontaneous.
The classroom smells like dry-erase markers and powdered soap. Twenty pairs of eyes turn toward me.
For a moment, the world narrows.
I crouch beside the orphanage’s newest resident, Mira, who is braiding neon thread around her wrist. “Is that a new pattern?”
She beams and launches into an explanation that involves three colors and a rivalry with the boys in the next room.
I listen. I ask about lessons, about arithmetic tests, and reading assignments.
Jackson, with ink-stained fingers, tells me he’s memorized a whole page of history without stumbling once.
I let their chatter wash over me. Let my smile settle naturally, not the polished curve I wear in council meetings, but something looser, warmer. Real.
Braydon lingers in the doorway. Watching. More relaxed now, and I instantly know my decision to mingle with the kids was the right decision.
When the bell rings, they scatter toward their next class in a blur of elbows and noise. Mira hugs me around the waist without warning, then darts off before I can say anything clever in return.
The room empties.
The silence that follows is heavier.
I return to Hannah’s office and close the door.
Hannah drops the file. “When do we make our move?” she asks, barely moving her lips. “I’ve pretended to read the same page five times, and if I have to do it again, I might go insane.”
Braydon’s shadow shifts beyond the glass.
I settle into my chair, spine straight, hands folded on her desk. The posture they taught me as a queen, stillness as armor.
“No time like the present,” I whisper.
The words taste braver than I feel.
Part of me wants to pivot. Call it off. Stay inside the lines Alexei has drawn and pretend they aren’t walls.
Instead, I lean back, slow and unthreatening, like I have nowhere else to be.
“Braydon?” I ask, as if I’ve just remembered him.
“Still watching,” Hannah murmurs with a sigh.
Figures.
“How do we want to play this?” she asks.
I tap a pen against the desk, considering the rhythm. Once. Twice. “A classic diversion.”
Her eyes flash, quick, bright. The same look she used to get in the dormitory hallway when Ms. O’Hara’s footsteps faded down the opposite corridor.
“I like it,” she muses approvingly.
We don’t outline it step by step. We don’t need to. We stand at the same time, pushing back our chairs in a scrape of metal legs.
“Coffee?” Hannah calls lightly as we open the door, loud enough for Braydon to hear.
Braydon straightens. “I’ll have someone bring it.”
“That’s all right,” I voice with a small laugh. “I could use the walk.”
The breakroom sits at the end of the hall, tucked beside the administrative wing. It’s narrow and cluttered with a single entrance. Perfect for what we need.
Hannah moves ahead of me, already rolling her shoulders as if preparing for a performance. I lag half a pace behind, letting Braydon’s attention settle where it naturally wants to, on me.
Inside, the fluorescent light flickers.
Hannah reaches for a mug as she turns to tell me something and misses. She really is that good.
It shatters against the tile.
“Oh no,” she breathes, dropping to her knees as coffee splashes across the floor. The smell blooms sharp and bitter.
Braydon steps forward immediately. “Careful.”
“I’m so sorry,” Hannah cries, reaching for paper towels, knocking a stack of folders off the counter in the process. Pages scatter right into the wet puddles. A chair tips over with a crack against the wall.
The noise ricochets down the hall.
Two of Hannah’s staff members appear at the doorway, drawn by the commotion.
I bend as if to help, pressing a napkin into the spreading stain. “It’s fine,” I murmur soothingly. “Accidents happen.”
Braydon crouches opposite Hannah, attention narrowing to the mess, to her hands, to the broken ceramic inches from her knee. His brows furrow in concern the moment she picks broken shards of glass with her fingers.
I let my gaze drift to the hall.
Now.
I rise, stepping back as if to fetch more towels. No one stops me as the staff swoops in to help.
The corridor feels longer than it did moments ago. My pulse drums in my ears, steady and loud. I don’t run. Running draws eyes.
I turn the corner.
In the distance, I hear Travis’s voice as he responds into his com, on my way in Braydon’s direction.
The exit sign hums overhead. A few steps and then I will be in the clear. The door opens with a soft hydraulic sigh.
Outside, the air hits cooler, sharper. The parking lot stretches wide and is nearly empty in the midday lull.
I angle my head, two of my agents on the opposite end, glancing back and forth across the lot. I hang in the doorway until their backs shift to me as they do a sweep in the opposite direction.
Third row. Blue sedan.
One of the For Youth coordinators handed Hannah the keys earlier this morning with a shrug and a reminder to bring them back before dusk. Didn’t even bat an eye at Hannah’s request to run a few errands.
I slide into the driver’s seat. The vinyl is warm from the sun. Nothing like the plush leather and luxury conveniences that the royal vehicles provide.
My hands tremble once on the steering wheel. I press them flat until they are still.
Through the building’s glass facade, I can make out movement, figures clustered in the breakroom hallway.
Hannah will wait for the right beat. For the exact moment, Braydon’s focus splinters.
I start the engine, relieved when it turns over with a low, obedient growl.
The door to the back swings open—my cue to put the car in reverse, Hannah racing to meet me.
She huffs out a breath, a strand of hair blowing aside from her face.
“Seconds,” she announces, her chest rising and falling in quick breaths.
I throw the car in drive.
Seconds are all we need as I peel from the parking lot and head in the direction of the fields.
The blue sedan rattles as far as the dirt path from the tournament field will allow, branches scraping along the sides like fingernails. I cut the engine before the tree line swallows the last of the solid path before us.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
The forest waits.
Hannah exhales first. “Well,” she mutters, pushing her door open.
Cold air rushes in, damp and green. I step out and circle to the trunk. Hannah already has it lifted, pulling the backpack free, slinging it over one shoulder, the straps dark against her jacket.
“How far in?” she asks.
I scan the tree line, the uneven break in the brush, the faint impression in the earth where our footsteps tore through last night.
“Half a mile,” I answer. “Maybe less.”
She nods once as we start walking, keeping to the edge of the forest where we’re less likely to be spotted.
The ground is soft from the early morning moisture. Leaves cling to our shoes; twigs snap under our weight. We don’t speak. We don’t need to. The urgency hangs between us, unspoken but heavy.
By now, Braydon will have reviewed the footage from the orphanage. He’ll see me slip down the corridor, rewind it once, twice, and know from the angle of the sedan turning off the main road that we are here.
I glance over my shoulder as if I can already hear them a few steps behind.
And Alexei…
I shove the thought aside before it roots too deep. There will be consequences.
But if this works, it changes everything. It gives us something Oksana and Wendell don’t expect.
Hannah keeps pace beside me, close enough that our shoulders nearly brush. She doesn’t ask what I’m thinking. The tight set of her jaw tells me she already knows.
The deeper we go, the quieter it becomes. Even the birds seem to have relocated.