Page 178 of Only for Him

After hours of talking,we have a plan.

One that hinges on everyone in the room playing their part.

Arata, covering our tracks and using evidence to track down Pavel’s inner circle.

Teddy and Dakota, hacking into Pavel’s accounts so we can liquidate his assets and cut off his rainy day fund.

Giselle and I, sharpening our teeth to tear him out of existence.

Now, Dakota sits hunched at the laptop. On the screen: a sterile login page. White and blue. A castle watermark taunting us from the corner.

She and Teddy have been trying to get into Pavel’s Swiss accounts for over an hour. The old man wasn’t just another brigadier. He built Pavel’s offshore network. Laundered everything through one hyper-secure bank in Switzerland.

Giselle stands in the doorway, arms crossed, looking like someone men go to war for. Her eyes are sharp, but her mouth is soft. Hope and dread wrestle there, refusing to give each other an inch.

I pace.

Teddy leans over her shoulder. “Try your mother’s maiden name again, with the birth year. The Swiss are anal about suffixes.”

I almost hope Teddy fucks this up—then, at least, I’ll have been right.

“Already did.”

“Did he have a favorite phrase?” Arata asks from across the room. “A song lyric? A nickname for you?”

“He called me ‘puppy’ until I was twelve.” Dakota’s voice is blank. “Or he’d use diminutives from the old Soviet cartoons. Pif and Hercules.”

I watch her hands. The knuckles are white, the nail beds chewed raw. She’s shaking, but not from cold. This is a body fluent in anticipating violence.

Nothing is working.

If we can’t get this part done… Well, I’m still hell-bent on killing Pavel.

But it’d be nice to drain his accounts first. Maybe put the money towards the victims. Dakota could certainly use it.

“Is there anything you know about his childhood? School? Any weird family stories?” Teddy asks.

Dakota’s jaw works.

“His mother’s maiden name was Zhuravleva,” she says, blinking. “He always joked about storks and who brings the babies. But he hated her. Called her ‘the vulture’ in private.”

Dakota enters:yastrebovna. Then, after a hesitation, the English:thevulture.

The cursor spins. Longer this time. The screen flashes, then the interface shifts, revealing a series of prompts, starting with “favorite color?”

Dakota’s face scrunches, like it hurts to remember. “His or mine?”

“Try both,” Teddy says. “Try everything. Start with yours.”

Dakota types inviolet.

“Good. Favorite animal?”

She bites her lip before typingCapybara.

Teddy grins. “Adorable. Okay. Childhood street?”

“Leninskaya Prospect,” she says, voice wobbling as she types it in.