Page 40 of The Pakhan’s Bride (Mafia Bosses #3)

ZOYA

S ince Ekaterina's vanishing, forty-eight hours and counting, the Vetrov estate is in permanent winter. There's still no telling where she went, but given Konstantin's surveillance, I suspect it won't be too long before she's found—if she has run, that is.

Part of me still wishes she's just gone shopping. Part of me hates the other part for being so naive.

I float the main corridor, toes nearly silent in house shoes, eyes never still.

The chandeliers reflect nothing. The tall windows admit only hard, colorless daylight, every pane mirrored and chill.

At each intersection, I pause, scan. The kitchen doors are closed.

The drawing room lamp is lit, but there's no scent of fresh tea or the drone of an intercom.

At the east portico, two guards stand at attention, faces static as carved lions. I know them both—one is ex-MVD, the other a cousin's cousin, handpicked for loyalty and the ability to shoot while wearing gloves. I nod. They don't blink.

The men have doubled the perimeter since the incident.

I saw the roster last night, every name underlined and cross-referenced with their most recent phone records.

Sokolov rotates the teams faster than before, never the same two men in the same hall twice in a row. They're afraid of patterns. Good.

I snake up the grand staircase. Each tread is more polished than the last. At the top, I linger at the overlook, scan the main floor for movement.

I catch a flicker—the tail of a coat in the west wing, gone before I can blink.

My mind is a mess of thoughts and too much anger, so I choose to check in on my son instead.

He's enjoying an off-day from school, happy in his little world in the playroom. I let myself in.

He's on the rug, surrounded by blocks, the tower rising with improbable precision.

His face is slack with concentration, tongue poked out, lip pinched between teeth.

Galina sits behind him, knitting, but her needles are idle and she's not watching the yarn.

She's watching Lev, and every few seconds, she checks the door.

"Dobroe utro," I say, low. "What are we building?"

Lev glances up. "A prison for the bad man."

He doesn't look at me, but I sense the emotion behind his answer. He doesn't know everything, but he suspects something has made his mother unhappy. Galina gives a small, almost invisible shake of the head—let it be.

I crouch next to him, pick up a stray block. "No one's ever escaped from this one," he says, stacking it. "I checked."

I stroke his hair, let my hand linger on the crown.

He leans into it. His shoulders are taut, his eyes red-rimmed at the edges.

He hasn't slept through the night since Ekaterina left.

Galina sets the needles down. "He's eaten," she says in her old-nanny voice, but I see her thumb rubbing her palm, a nervous tic she only uses in war time.

I look her over. She hasn't changed her cardigan, the pearls are the same, but her cheeks have lost their color. "Are you sleeping?" I ask.

She shrugs. "I dream with one eye."

Lev's hands tremble, but he keeps building. I want to promise him it's going to be okay. I don't. Instead, I whisper, "You are safe," and I mean it because if I don't, then nothing is true.

I get up. Galina stands, steadying herself on the table. "He's worried about you," she says in a low voice when Lev can't hear. "You must let him see you are not afraid."

"I'm not," I say, but it sounds hollow.

She glances at Lev, then back to me. "Be the wolf. For both of them." I know she means my son and Konstantin.

I leave the playroom and make my next pass down the south corridor.

Here, the windows are taller, the view of the grounds better.

I scan for movement. Nothing. The guards at the main gate are inside the kiosk, heads down, likely reading the live feeds from the cameras on the drive.

One of the gardeners is out, brushing dead leaves from the ornamental pond, but his attention is locked on his task.

I make for the greenhouse, and humidity slaps me in the face once I enter, the scents of soil and mold thick enough to eat.

I cross to the glass wall, put my palms against it.

The cold seeps in, and for a second I let my breath fog up the view.

Ekaterina once told me plants are the best spies.

They listen with roots, they record footsteps, they can be poisoned and never show a mark until it's too late.

I run a finger along the rosemary, pinch a sprig, and rub it between my fingers.

The oil is sharp. I inhale, count to three, and move on.

I skirt the outer corridors, avoiding the guest suites.

There's nothing for me there. Instead, I head for the study.

Konstantin's study is a bunker at the heart of the house. The door is a slab of hardwood with an electronic panel embedded at shoulder height. Two guards stand outside. One faces the hall, the other the wall. They acknowledge me as I approach.

I knock. A single, flat knock. One of the guards clears his throat. "He's not in, Madam."

My heart sinks, even though I want to stay strong. Konstantin's absences have grown longer. He used to linger outside my bedroom before, even if he wouldn't come in. But he's not doing that any longer. Everything feels cold without him.

I head to the dining room, laid out but untouched. No guests, no meetings, not even a breakfast tray. I inspect the table—the plates are flawless, the silver polished, but there's dust on the napkin at my place. I run a finger through it, check the color, then wipe it on my pants.

In the next room, I find the first real anomaly of the day.

A single chair is pulled out from the conference table, not fully pushed in. At the edge of the seat, a crease in the velvet—someone sat here recently. I kneel, scan under the table, and find a sliver of white.

I reach for it, careful. It's a fragment of paper, thin as a razor. I examine it—the edge is torn, not cut. The surface is blank except for a faint trace of ink. I squint, hold it to the light, and see the tail of a letter—maybe a capital V, or a broken loop of an O.

For some reason, I pocket it.

I wander the lower floor, restless. In the laundry, I find the baskets are empty. The maid in charge nods to me, but her eyes are swollen. She's been crying.

She wipes her cheek. "Mrs. Vetrov," she says. "I'm sorry."

I nod, let her have the moment, then move on.

Returning to my son, I give him all the love and time he needs.

We play for a while, after which Galina and I let him have cut up hot-dogs and spaghetti with ketchup for dinner.

He can't sleep in his own room, so at eight, I hold him in my arms and rock him gently until he's snoring softly before laying him down on my bed.

Once he's asleep, I leave to have a quick dinner and run through the list in my head.

- Ekaterina missing, with no message, no threat.

- Konstantin refusing to show face.

- Lev subdued, Galina in full shadow mode.

- Staff reduced to whispers and silent chores.

- Security tight, maybe too tight.

- Me, sleepless, moving in loops that only get smaller.

By the time I reach my own room, my heart is racing. I unlock the door, step inside. At first, everything is as I left it. The bed is clean, and Lev is still tucked inside and sleeping soundly. The closet is closed. The windows are still fogged. But something is different.

It takes me a full minute to spot it. The jewelry box on my dresser is half-open.

Not wide, just enough to show silver at the edge.

I approach gingerly. The lid lifts with a click.

Inside, my pieces are arranged as always—rings, pins, the platinum chain from Paris. But my silver bracelet is missing.

My pulse goes liquid. I check the box three times, then the tray beneath. I run my hands over every surface, searching for a note, a sign, a message. Nothing.

I cross to the bed. The sheets are too tight, as if remade by an unfamiliar hand.

I check the pillows. One is slightly flatter than the other.

I lift it. There is an ashtray beneath, porcelain, with a faint gold rim.

Inside—the charred remnants of paper. I lift the tray, careful not to disturb the ash.

The top layer is scorched black, but under it, I can make out the edge of a card.

I brush away the flakes, revealing a fragment of my place card from last week's dinner.

The script is unmistakable, my name in precise, spiked calligraphy.

The bottom half is burned away, but the word "Vetrov" remains, half-eaten by flame.

I sit on the bed, holding the ashtray, and let the sensation flood me.

Someone has been here. In my room, in my things, in my life. They took the bracelet not for value, but for leverage. They burned my name to remind me that the line between queen and hostage is thin.

My skin prickles. My hands sweat. I want to scream, but I don't. Instead, I gather the ashes into a Ziploc bag from my travel kit. I seal it, flatten it, and hide it in the lining of my suitcase.

I stand in the center of the room, scanning for more. I check the vent, the window locks, the floor for prints. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Except for the smell. It's faint, almost gone. Not smoke, but something sweeter. Amber, maybe, or an expensive cigar.

I close my eyes, try to place it. Ekaterina never smoked. But her lovers did. She wore their colognes like armor, even years after she'd outgrown them.

On a whim, I open the closet, scan the shoes.

At the very back, a heel is slightly misaligned, the toe pointed toward the wall instead of out.

I reach for it, tilt it, and something clatters inside.

I turn the shoe over, and a toothpick falls out.

Not a round one, but the flat, splintery kind you get in cheap vodka bars.

After picking it up, I rotate it. There's a dot of red lipstick at the end, as if someone had chewed it and then dabbed her lips. The message is clear—I am being watched, catalogued, and fucked with. Not by a ghost but by a very real, very deliberate hand.

I close the closet, draw the curtains tight, and check the lock on the door. I jam a chair under the handle, not because it will help but because I need the ritual.

In the mirror, I look the same as always. Hair pinned, eyes sharp, no color in the cheeks. But the skin under my jaw is twitching, a muscle spasm from too many hours without sleep.

I clench my teeth, flex my hands, and check the jewelry box again.

It's full night now. The moon is a coin, barely a sliver. The house has gone dead quiet. Not even the guards make noise. The only sound is the tick of the old clock in the corridor and the occasional crack of wood settling under the cold.

I strip off my clothes, fold them, put on an old T-shirt of Konstantin's, left behind on one of the rare occasions he slept here.

It feels large on me, but comfortingly so.

I stare at myself in the mirror, watching the pulse at my neck.

The line of my jaw is sharper than last week, the bones standing out like warning signs.

I tie my hair back, braid it, then slip the knife under the pillow.

I get into bed, covers tight to the chin, and listen.

It's not sleep that comes, but a kind of waiting. I count the minutes. Every five, I sit up, check the window, check the lock, check the time.

At 12:12, I hear sounds at the window. Three knocks, slow, spaced. Not hurried. Not desperate. Confident.

I freeze, breath locked in my chest. Another knock. Then a pause.

I slide to the edge of the balcony door, keep my body out of sight. I flatten against the wall, inch the curtain back. A silhouette is on the other side, human, tall, but the face is shadowed. Instead, a voice, low, muffled by the glass, but unmistakably my husband's.

"Open up," he says in Russian. The cadence is intimate in a way that makes my heart skip. I didn't realize how many hours had passed since I heard him speak.

I slide the lock, open the door a crack. The cold rushes in, but so does the warm scent of him. "What are you doing?"

"You jammed the door, Zimushka ." The silhouette steps forward, face now visible in the moonlight. Konstantin is dressed in black, hair slicked back, eyes flat as river stone. He says nothing at first, just stares. "What do you want?" I ask, voice steady.

He glances at me. "You should know by now."

I open the door all the way and collapse into his arms. He holds me, running long fingers through my hair, murmuring endearments into my ear until I feel calmer than I have in the whole year. Finally, he says, "You're the only one I trust."