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I feel his fingers at the hem of my skirt, sliding it up my thigh under the table. I keep my eyes on the document and my expression exactly where I need it. He gets his hand between my thighs, and I let him part them because closing them would require a visible movement and I’m not giving the room that. His fingers find my underwear, and I’m wet, which I’m furious about, and he knows it immediately. He pulls the fabric aside and pushes two fingers inside me without warning.

I stop breathing for one second.

He keeps talking. Something about the port shipment. His voice is completely even. His fingers don’t move, just sit there inside me while he addresses the room like he’s doing nothing more interesting than reviewing documents. I stare at the page in my hands and read the same line four times.

Then he curls his fingers.

My grip tightens on the document. I press my ankles together and keep my face right. He sits there with his fingers inside me, talking about logistics, and the absolute audacity of it is something I’m going to need time to properly process.

He pulls his hand away when the meeting ends, straightens my skirt with one efficient movement, and goes back to his papers.

I sit in his lap for another three minutes while the room clears, my pulse doing things it has no business doing, wet enough that I need to change before I do anything else.

Neither of us has broken yet. I’m revising my timeline on that.

What I don’t revise is why I’m here. The drive is in my jacket pocket. My father is in a box with no body in it. Whatever my pulse is doing right now has nothing to do with any of that, and I need it to remember that.

The encrypted files are moving. Slowly and with enormous amounts of profanity directed at my laptop, but moving. Another layer cracked three days ago, and what came through was a series of financial transfers routed through shell companies I don’t recognize yet. Large amounts, complex routing, the kind of structure someone builds specifically to resist being understood. Whoever moved this money didn’t want it found. I’ve been working backward through the shells. I refuse to accept that anything is beyond me. All I need to do is keep working at it, hard and as long as it takes.

Two days ago I planted a test.

I mentioned to one of the household staff, in passing, that I’d been thinking about contacting an old friend from law school about a legal matter. I gave her a name and a firm. Neither the person nor the firm exists. I said it once, dropped it into conversation like it meant nothing, and went back to what I was doing.

By seven that evening, Volkov mentioned the name at dinner, slipped into a sentence about something else, his eyes on his plate. But he said it. And there was exactly one way that name got from a staff member’s ears to his mouth in under eight hours.

Someone in this house is reporting my movements to my husband.

I’d suspected since the first week. The way certain questions he asked me were slightly too targeted. The way information seemed to reach him faster than it should. I suspected, and I didn’t move on the suspicion because suspicion isn’t evidence and I’m a lawyer. Now I have evidence.

I spend the two days managing what I let slip. Feeding the informant two categories of information, things I’m comfortable with Volkov knowing, and things that are entirely fabricated. It’s the same skill as writing two versions of a brief simultaneously, one for the judge and one for opposing counsel, and I’m good at it.

The dinner with the Bratva wives yields more than expected. Natasha, married to one of Volkov’s senior lieutenants for twelve years, talks freely after her second glass of wine. I keep her glass full and ask her about the estate’s history, and she tells me things that are none of my business. I take all of it in without writing a word down, because writing things down in this house is yet another risk I’m not taking.

I’ve also found two more blind spots in the camera coverage. The angle above the east stairwell cuts off at the landing, leaving a gap of about six feet. I’m not using it yet, but it’s good to know because I’ll need it for what I’m building toward.

The files are the priority. Everything else is scaffolding.

I think about my father sitting at his desk with whatever he knew, whatever he was hiding, whatever he was trying to protect me from. He built a wall between his world and mine, and it didn’t save him. The least I can do is understand what he was carrying.

I’m at the desk in the early evening, the drive open, the tutorial running in one ear, notes spread in front of me. I’ve been at it for two hours, and I’m close to something. I can feel it.

The door opens.

He’s earlier than usual. Volkov fills the doorway, jacket already off, and his eyes go straight to the laptop, the desk, the notes, me with one earpiece in and my hand flat on the page.

I close the laptop as nonchalantly as I can. His eyes narrow ever so slightly. He knows I’m up to something. I know he does. But he doesn’t know what exactly.

He leans his shoulder against the doorframe, crosses his arms, and looks at me across the room with the expression I’ve learned to distrust, the one that means he’s already where he’s going and he’s waiting to see how long it takes me to figure that out.

“You’re testing my people, Zayka,” he says.

10

Volkov

“You’re not even a little sorry,” she says.

“No,” I say. “Why would I be?”