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Any memory of my mother is long faded, absorbed by the many years that have passed since she left me at a Miami orphanage when I was barely six years old and never came back.

“Your letter was intriguing.” Volkov gestures to a deep leather chair on the other side of a low wooden coffee table and seats himself in another. The furniture, though simple and understated, is clearly of the highest quality, unsurprising given that Volkov, according to my brief, deals in high-end art and antiques. The coffee table has a worn patina and a delicate gold floral inlay around the edges. Beyond the familiar scent of the tea, there’s something oddly comforting about the room that I can’t quite place.

He pours tea and passes my glass across the table with a dish of sugar cubes. I place one of the cubes between my teeth before I sip, another habit I remember being taught, but not by whom.

“You’re Russian, then.”

I look up to find Volkov watching me with rather curious eyes—unsurprisingly, since I’ve clearly mentally checked out for the second time in as many minutes.

Christ, what’s wrong with me today?

Jet lag excuse aside, I’m the one who asked for this meeting.

Get your head back in the game, asshole.

“I am Russian, yes. Or at least that’s what the nuns in the orphanage told me.” I return his smile. “When I turned up on their doorstep, I only spoke Russian.”

“You were raised by nuns, then?” He sits back in his chair, balancing his tea in one hand while hitching one leg over theother with a casual grace that almost makes me smile. “Was that in Miami?”

He’s a smooth bastard.I can just imagine him lulling people into conversation, before selling them a million-dollar piece without turning a hair.

“It was, yes.”

It’s not a lie. I stayed with the nuns for six months. Right up until Yakov came to “rescue” me.

“And you?” I shift the conversation back to him, smiling easily as I sip my tea. “Have you been in England for long?”

“I’ve been in London for almost fifteen years now.” Leon definitely is smooth, his attitude as relaxed as my own. It’s only the sixth sense honed by a lifetime of reading hard men that tells me there’s more to him than the elegant veneer.

“And you deal in antiques?”

“I do.” His smile is as opaque as his eyes.

Bastard doesn’t give a lot away.

But this isn’t a bratva face-off. I don’t have anything to prove, and frankly, I’d rather get this done faster than slower, so I cut the game short.

“I understand that your mother was Irina Stenyavina?”

His eyebrows raise very slightly. He inclines his head politely and sips his tea.

This one has a poker face to rival mine.

Oddly, I don’t mind it. In fact, I find myself rather enjoying this encounter. And Volkov certainly has style, I’ll give him that. Everything about this house, from the ornate samovar and perfectly brewed tea to the first-edition Tolstoys and Dostoevskys bound in leather on the bookshelves screams elegant sophistication.

Or more to the point, whispers it in subtle tones.

“I wondered if you might indulge me by telling me a little of what you know of your family history?” Usually, I come into these meetings knowing the background already, sincemy cyber team is second to none. However, Leon Volkov proved a little more difficult than most.

Correction: the guy’s history has been so effectively wiped he might as well not exist.

Had it not been for a casual remark about his mother he let slip to a journalist in a profile piece several years ago, we’d never have found him at all.

That one comment was enough for us to establish that his family tree stacks up. The difficulty we had in putting it together, however, told us that Leon Volkov is most definitely more than the elegant dealer in rare art and antiques that he appears. The only question is who he’s spying for—the Kremlin, the Brits, or someone else. Nobody but intelligence has a record that clean.

I don’t particularly give a fuck who he’s passing secrets to. I’m not here to analyze the man’s politics.

Just to make sure he’s the right recipient of the little wooden box.