Chapter 30
KATIE
Artur lays black clothing across the bed as if preparing to disappear into the dark before morning.
Cherry is due within the hour to take me for supplies, an ordinary outing I mentioned at breakfast because asking permission would have drawn more attention than leaving beneath the freedom clause.
Artur assigned an exterior guard before I finished eating, then returned to the warehouse plans without asking why cosmetics had become urgent.
The shirt has no visible buttons, and his trousers carry narrow pockets along both thighs, each already holding equipment I can’t identify without asking questions whose answers I don’t want.
A compact medical kit rests beside his shoulder holster, while the pistol itself remains on the dresser beneath his hand.
I have watched Artur prepare for dinners, meetings, and the casino, where black silk under a dinner jacket made violence look civilized.
Tonight’s clothing belongs to another version of him.
Matte fabric follows his body without catching light; narrow pockets along his thighs hold equipment instead of decoration, and even the fastenings are made to disappear.
He removes his watch before checking the pistol, leaving a pale band around his powerful wrist. That bare place frightens me more than the weapon.
It means he expects silence to matter more than time—and expects darkness to recognize him as one of its own.
He checks the medical kit once, then places an extra pressure bandage inside. The ordinary movement exposes what both of us understand. Reconnaissance is a word men use before entering a place that may already contain guns.
“Delay the warehouse by twenty-four hours,” I say.
He turns from the dresser slowly. “Why?”
Four days have passed since Lidia’s confession, and the promised meeting is less than three hours away. Cherry sent Lidia the location that morning through another borrowed phone, but Lidia won’t reveal where she hid the burner until she sees that no Dymov team followed us.
I can’t give Artur the reason without exposing her before the proof enters my hands. If he keeps his promise, Boris verifies the phone. If grief over Misha and fear for the babies overtake that promise, Lidia may vanish into a Dymov basement while Ivan learns exactly what she disclosed.
“Because the intelligence came through Ivan,” I say.
“You knew that at the mansion.”
“I also asked for time.”
Artur crosses the bedroom, leaving the pistol behind while bringing every other danger with him. “You know something that affects the operation.”
“I may know something. There is a difference.”
“Explain it.”
The command tightens my chest because giving him half the accusation would be worse than silence. “I can’t yet.”
His eyes turn pale in the lamplight. “Then I can’t stop a verified weapons investigation because you have a suspicion you refuse to name.”
“The manifest may be genuine while the plan around it is false.”
“That’s why we’re conducting reconnaissance.”
“Tomorrow morning?”
“Before dawn. We verify the crates, photograph the interior routes, then leave without engaging.”
The plan sounds careful enough that doubt begins working against me.
Lidia’s phone may prove only that Ivan’s intermediary purchased my address, not that Ivan has built an ambush around genuine weapons intelligence.
Asking Artur to surrender an operational advantage for evidence I haven’t seen requires the same faith I refuse to place in him.
“Twenty-four hours,” I repeat.
“Give me one fact.”
I look toward the clothing on the bed rather than his face. “The person I’m protecting believes you’ll kill her.”
Artur becomes still. “Lidia.”
My heart strikes once against my ribs, threatening to expose the answer unless I bury it. “You brought her name into the meeting.”
“Your body answered it.”
“Then perhaps you don’t need me to explain.”
His hand closes around my waist, drawing me close with a force that turns argument into heat before either of us chooses it. “I need you to trust me before your silence puts you somewhere I can’t reach.”
“Trust requires information from both sides.”
His grip eases at the answer, and his gaze drops toward my stomach. I don’t understand the full wound behind that pause, only that he has heard the accusation inside my words.
Artur lowers himself to his knees.
My dress has risen slightly beneath his hand, revealing the lower curve of a stomach that remains unchanged to anyone who doesn’t know three embryos live behind it. He presses his mouth below my navel, warm breath moving through the fabric while both hands hold my hips.
His face at this angle carries none of the arrogance he wears before captains, only dark hair falling across his forehead. I thread my fingers through it, feeling the warmth of his scalp while fear tries to memorize every texture.
Artur turns his head, kissing the inside of my wrist before returning his mouth to my stomach. The gesture moves desire through me without asking for more, making my thighs tense around the space between his shoulders while tenderness becomes almost indecent beneath the argument.
The tenderness feels like farewell because neither of us has surrendered the secret dividing us.
“Remain with Niko tomorrow,” he says against my skin. “Wherever you go, he keeps you in sight.”
“Artur.”
He looks up. “Promise me.”
The request is too direct to evade without exposing the meeting. “I promise to keep my assigned guard in sight.”
It is narrower than what he asked, and his eyes tell me he hears the difference, but Artur rises without forcing a broader answer.
He kisses me slowly, one hand spread over my lower back while the other cups my face.
The unresolved distance sharpens every pass of his tongue until my fingers close around his shirt.
He could carry me to the bed and make the morning disappear beneath his body, yet neither of us uses sex to silence what remains unsaid.
The restraint leaves me more shaken than surrender would have. His erection presses hard against my stomach when I pull him closer, proving his distance is chosen rather than cold, while his palm moves beneath my dress to hold the bare skin at the back of my thigh.
For several breaths, I let myself imagine telling him everything.
He would call Boris, secure Lidia, then place Ivan beneath observation while the file was tested.
That version of Artur exists in the promises he made at the mansion.
The man who knelt before me is now dressed to enter a warehouse after I asked him to wait, and fear may decide which version stands first.
I draw away first.
When the kiss ends, his forehead rests against mine.
“Come back before I leave,” he says.
“Wait for me.”
His mouth brushes mine once more without agreeing.
Cherry drives an ordinary gray sedan borrowed from one of the dancers, its floor scattered with empty water bottles and a single silver heel. The exterior guard Artur assigned follows in a second car, never closer than two lengths behind us as we leave the safe-house road.
The guard called before we departed to confirm that his assignment involved watching from a distance rather than pretending not to watch from a distance.
When I agreed, he asked whether cosmetics warehouses contain combustible adhesive, then became offended when Cherry laughed loudly enough for him to hear through the phone.
Now his car remains behind a delivery van at every stoplight, visible only when I turn and catch the gray hood. Keeping him in sight satisfies my promise to Artur, but allowing Lidia into the deck without his knowledge violates its purpose.
The parking deck stands four blocks from Velvet Fortune, attached to an office tower that empties before evening.
Its open sides frame Atlanta in horizontal slices—glass towers catching sunset above, brake lights and wet asphalt below—while the interior remains all poured concrete and echo.
The day’s heat lingers after the offices go dark, carrying oil, dust, and rain trapped beneath tires through the cool air moving between levels.
Cherry climbs to the fourth level, where empty spaces spread beneath humming lights and every engine can be heard long before it appears. Lidia’s compact car waits near the far stairwell, positioned nose-out for a fast departure. In the exposed quiet, it looks poised for flight.
I direct Cherry toward a space with two rows between us. Through the open side of the deck, I can see the exterior guard park across the street below, exactly where the promise requires him to remain visible.
“He has binoculars,” Cherry says.
“He also brought binoculars to a cosmetics errand.”
“A committed man.”
“If he enters the deck, drive away with the phone.”
Cherry’s humor disappears. “Without you?”
“With me if possible.”
We cross the concrete while our footsteps return from the low ceiling. Lidia opens her passenger door only after checking the guard’s car through a small pair of field glasses.
She looks worse than she did at the café. Concealer fails to hide the purple beneath her eyes, while a split along her lower lip suggests fear hasn’t been her only visitor.
“Who hit you?” I ask.
“The man I live with dislikes locked drawers.”
Cherry reaches for her, but Lidia retreats behind the car door.
“Give me his name and address,” I say. “Nadia will move you before anyone approaches him. Then you give me the phone.”
Lidia hesitates before reciting both, and Cherry records the details, followed by the time and place where it happened. I photograph Lidia’s split lip only after she agrees, making the boyfriend a task with evidence instead of another ugly promise everyone forgets when the larger danger arrives.