16. Dmitri
DMITRI
Abramov sends the message before I leave the north wing.
Cara O’Connell’s status has changed from contained guest to active investigation asset. Two routes have been logged between her quarters and the secure annex within the last hour. Staff exposure has increased. The escort protocol needs revision.
I read it once, then read it again.
I asked for this access, and I hate it already. More movement means more doors, staff, guards, cameras, deliveries, and timing for someone to study. One careless person could learn her route before we catch him watching.
I want her moved to a guarded suite near my quarters, close to the secure annex, where every route can be watched and blocked fast.
Maksim summons me ten minutes later. The walk downstairs gives me time to build an argument for locking Cara unless she gives us every code she is hiding. By the time I reach his office, I know it won’t work.
Lock her out, and she’ll keep every secret she has. Give her a narrow path into the work, and she may use it just to prove she can.
Maksim’s office sits near the legal corridor, away from the live feeds and close to the files that make violence look respectable.
Old wood panels cover the walls. Leather chairs face his desk.
A cut-glass tumbler sits near the blotter with a thumb of whiskey left in it.
Coffee steams near the window, untouched.
The Pakhan stands behind his desk when I enter.
“You want Cara moved.”
“Closer to the secure annex,” I say. “Near my quarters.”
“Different words. Same request.”
“Her status changed.” I stay where I am. “She’s part of the investigation now. Moving her limits staff exposure, reduces corridor risk, and gives us faster response if Patrick or Morozov moves again.”
Maksim listens.
“Patrick’s archive carried a beacon,” I say. “Morozov has something that makes him bolder. Cara reads Patrick faster than Yuri can pull fragments from a machine.”
“She works in the secure annex,” Maksim says. “She won’t live beside it.”
“That creates movement.”
“So does every living person in my house.” Maksim rests both hands on the desk. “You want her closer because you don’t like doors between you.”
I don’t answer fast enough.
His mouth barely moves. “That’s what I thought.”
The side door opens, and Elena steps in with a file against her chest and a baby blanket folded over one arm. I didn’t know she was there. Maksim did.
Elena looks at him first, then at me. “Cara doesn’t need tighter walls.”
Maksim’s eyes stay on mine. “She needs control.”
“She needs one steady pair of eyes that cares whether she eats, rests, and doesn’t turn herself into a weapon out of panic.
” She places the blanket on a chair. Purple cloth, faded yellow ducks, a green border worn soft from use.
The sight of it cuts through the office’s cold violence with something painfully domestic.
Maksim turns toward his wife. “Putting Dmitri and Cara in one wing won’t make my house calmer.”
“This isn’t about the house,” Elena says.
Maksim says nothing.
“If Cara opens to anyone here, it will be him,” Elena says. “Separating them may feel safer, but it will make her fight the walls harder.”
I keep still. Elena has done this before, in another shape, with different locks and different men calling it protection. Maksim hears that. He doesn’t like it, but he hears it.
Maksim looks at me. “Cara stays in the north wing.”
I open my mouth. He lifts one finger. I stop.
“You’ll set up a temporary desk in the north-wing study near the library corridor,” he says. “Officially, it’s for faster coordination while she works Patrick’s patterns.”
Elena doesn’t protest, which tells me she agrees.
Maksim continues. “Unofficially, everyone will understand that you can’t keep walking away from her door.”
Heat climbs under my collar. “Pakhan.”
“Don’t make that tone sound like innocence.” Maksim picks up a folder. “You’ll keep her useful, fed, and alive. You’ll keep your judgment clean, and you’ll not give Morozov another route through this house.”
Elena looks toward the window. “Dmitri?”
I glance at her.
“She’s not a file just because you can read her.”
The office becomes harder to stand in.
Maksim gives the final order. “Move your desk before dinner.”
I leave with the compromise in my hands. It’s sound on paper and is obvious to every person with eyes. That makes it worse.
By the time I reach the north wing corridor, I’ve already chosen the study closest to the library. From there, I can see the turn toward Cara’s suite and every man who crosses it.
The study is smaller than the offices downstairs, but it has what I need. One desk. Two secured lines. A wall screen that can lock to internal feeds. A cabinet Abramov’s men are already reinforcing. The door faces the corridor that leads to Cara’s suite.
Officially, this is efficient.
Unofficially, I almost smile when I see the study he gave me. Maksim knows exactly what I’m doing, and he has worn the same shoes.
Two men carry in a secure terminal while Mrs. Wentworth directs them as if she’s commanding armies with better shoes. Lidiya passes with a tray of empty dishes, sees me, and doesn’t pause. Good staff learn fast. Better staff learn what not to see.
I notice Cara’s tray comes out empty.
Elena’s words return with annoying precision. “One steady pair of eyes that cares whether she eats.”
I don’t like that Elena was right. After Boston, I told myself there were clean categories.
Want. Grief. Need. Revenge. Duty. Cara has ruined that twice now.
Last night, she kissed me first. She asked for honesty with her hands on my chest and anger in her mouth.
I gave her control where it mattered because I know the difference between taking and being chosen.
She chose me for an hour. She kept the name from me anyway. Now that name sits between us, and I want it out.
Voices move down the corridor. Sergei appears first, shoulders squared.
Cara walks beside him in black trousers and a simple cream sweater that doesn’t look simple on her.
The soft fabric fits her breasts, follows her waist, and holds my attention before I can move it away.
She has twisted her hair up, but pieces have fallen free around her face, and one loose strand brushes her throat when she turns.
Bad place to look. Worse place to want my mouth.
The staff notices her. A maid with folded towels glances once, then looks away. Two guards at the north-wing arch adjust their stance. A young runner with files steps aside before Sergei asks. Yesterday, Cara was the woman upstairs. Today, she’s being escorted to work.
Cara notices the change. I see it in the small lift of her chin.
Sergei says something in Russian, the scar by his chin pulling slightly when he speaks.
Cara raises her hand a little. “I understood none of that, but your tone said good morning.”
Sergei’s mouth moves, almost a smile. “I said you’re trouble.”
“That’s very specific, and probably fair. How do you say that in Russian?”
“Prokaznitsa,” he says.
Cara repeats it badly.
Sergei gives her the smallest correction, and she tries again with doomed confidence, then breaks off, laughing.
“That might be the first thing about this country I understand,” she says.
Sergei makes the mistake of looking amused.
I move back into my study and stop before the desk. My hand closes around the edge of a file.
He isn’t flirting. Sergei is careful, dry, and respectful. He gives her enough space to breathe, and I dislike how quickly she relaxes into it.
Cara reaches the library door and sees me in the study. Her expression changes, and for one second she forgets to be angry. Then her mouth flattens, and she looks away.
Sergei follows her attention. “Antonov.”
I step into the corridor. “You’re early.”
Sergei straightens. “Abramov asked me to escort Miss O’Connell to the secure annex.”
Cara folds her arms. “Good morning to you as well, North Wing Management.”
Sergei turns his face away, but his shoulders give him up.
I stare him down until the humor leaves. “The annex is ready,” I say in Russian.
“Understood,” Sergei says.
Cara looks between us. “Did I miss a memo, or do Russian men communicate through professional staring and encrypted muttering?”
“Careful,” I say.
Her mouth curves without warmth. “I was. That was the edited version.”
Sergei’s attention flicks toward the arch, and I know he wants out of this corridor.
“I’ll take her,” I say.
Sergei doesn’t argue.
Cara’s mouth curves. “Do I get a say in this escort reshuffle?”
“No.”
“Great. Democracy is thriving,” Cara says as she falls into step beside me.
I take her toward the private stairwell. Sergei follows us in and takes the door, far enough back to look like part of the wall.
“You’re going to work, not Parliament,” I say.
“I’d be excellent in Parliament.”
“You’d be removed before lunch,” I say, pressing my palm to the access panel.
The lock clicks open, and Cara walks through first. “Only if they were cowards.”
I take Cara’s file from the temporary desk and hand it to her. “You’ll work in this annex. It sits beside the comms room. Limited terminal. Printed materials. Yuri monitors the system, Abramov monitors the room, and I review what you find.”
Cara accepts the file. “Sounds intimate.”
“It’s supervised,” I say, opening the annex door.
“That’s not better. That’s just a firewall with furniture.”
I look back at her once.
She lifts the file. “What? I’m appreciating the prison upgrade.”
Cara sits at the secured laptop and studies the locked interface with open irritation.
Yuri has done his best to make the machine useless for escape and useful for work.
Mirrored screen. Locked ports. No outside connection.
Session timer in the corner. Notes panel boxed inside a local drive.
Every keystroke copies to his station, where he watches with grim focus and a deep interest in keeping his spine intact.
Cara accepts all of it with murder in her posture.
Her face is still pale from everything she refuses to say, but her hands move cleanly. She reads the files the way other people read a dinner table. Patrick’s rot doesn’t live inside code alone. It lives in wording, timing, vanity, and the places he expects family to look away.
Yuri leans closer to his mirrored screen. “I checked that folder already.”
Cara clicks into it anyway. “You checked the folder. You didn’t check why Patrick named it GranddadPhotosClean.”
Kirill Sazonov, the junior systems worker at the side table, looks up from a stack of printouts.
Yuri frowns. “It’s photos.”
“Yes, and Patrick’s photos are never clean.” Cara opens a subfolder and tilts her head. “There. See the duplicate naming? One batch says clean. One says final. Patrick never calls anything final unless he wants people to stop asking questions.”
The folder opens into scanned invoices, old baptism records, and a note file buried under a family reunion label.
Yuri stops for half a second, then whistles. “Wow.”
Cara doesn’t smile, but something in her face eases. “Most people do that.”
She opens the note file. Most of it looks like family nonsense. Names, dates, parish reminders, reunion seating. Then one line catches.
Uncle Viktor brings the winter medicine through the old door. No priest asks twice.
Cara’s face changes.
“That’s not family history,” she says. “That’s routing language.”
Yuri leans in. “Winter medicine.”
“Medical refrigeration crates,” I say.
Cara points to the second half of the line. “Old door means a trusted entry point. No priest asks twice means charity paperwork. Nobody checks the blessed boxes.”
Yuri’s fingers move fast. “Riga had a secondary gate tied to a church relief partner.”
Cara sits back. “Patrick buried the words someone used to find the routes.”
Kirill reaches for the printer before Cara asks. “Do you want the note file?”
She glances over, surprised by the speed. “Yes. And anything with the words reunion, blessing, old country, or legacy.”
Kirill types fast. “Legacy?”
“Patrick uses legacy when he means unpaid debt in a better jacket.”
Yuri laughs into his coffee. The sound cracks through the annex before anyone can pretend it didn’t happen. Sergei gives a short huff near the door. Kirill smiles openly at his printer. Even Abramov’s deputy, Vasin, lets his attention slide toward Cara.
“Impressive,” he says from near the door.
Cara looks up from the screen.
For a second, her mouth loses its guarded line. The secret behind her eyes retreats. She looks almost normal.
Normal, in a room full of men who should’ve scared that out of her by now.
I shift my grip from the desk to the back of a chair. Those men get that second from her. I tell myself I’m watching for security risks. The lie lasts until Yuri laughs again.
Vasin’s attention stays on her face, then on the loose strand near her cheek, then on the way she works with anger sitting under focus.
Once before, he used the wrong word. Authorized subject. He was corrected. Here he is again. Careless once is a mistake. Careless twice is a pattern I remove.
I turn toward Abramov, who has just entered with a folder tucked under one arm. “Move Vasin.”
Abramov’s gaze cuts to the guard, then to Cara. He understands before I give the reason.
“Rear grounds?” he asks.
“Rear grounds.”
Vasin straightens. “Antonov?”
“You lack discipline around protected assets,” I say.
My voice leaves him no place to argue.
Color rises under his collar. “Yes, sir.”
Cara’s fingers pause on the keyboard. She doesn’t turn, which tells me she heard every word and caught the ones I chose. Protected asset.
Abramov points Vasin out with two fingers, and the guard leaves through the side door, spine stiff, pride bruised, career intact for now.
Yuri keeps his attention on the monitor. His smile is gone. Kirill is back at his monitor.
Cara pushes back from the desk. “I’m tired.”
She looks at Sergei. “Can you take me back to my rooms?”
The chair under my hand creaks once. Sergei doesn’t move. Smart man.
I look at Cara. “I’ll take you.”
Her smile is small and lethal. “I didn’t ask you.”
Every man in the annex suddenly remembers his screen. I open my mouth to answer her, then shut it before I give every man in the annex something worth hearing.
I turn to Sergei. “Take her back.”
Sergei nods once. “Miss O’Connell.”
Cara walks past me without a word. She gets what she asked for.
I let the distance stand for now.