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I finally understood how he had looked at his wife and infant son and chosen to walk back into danger. Love hadn’t failed to stop him.

Love was the reason he couldn’t.

Rurik returned to the doorway. “Vladmir has another location. We leave in twenty minutes.”

I looked around the borrowed room. Another bed we hadn’t chosen. Another kitchen containing food purchased by a stranger. Another group of armed men preparing to risk their lives so I could survive inside four different walls.

Moving would protect me for a night. Perhaps a week.

It wouldn’t protect Henry when the Society found another Mac.

The realization didn’t arrive as despair. Despair was loud, consuming every possibility until death appeared merciful. What entered me then was quieter and far more dangerous.

Certainty.

Salvatore had tried to make himself the end of the trail. The Society killed him and followed the knowledge to me. If I disappeared without changing anything, it would follow Henry next. If Rurik killed everyone who came through the door, they would only send more. Mac was dead, but another man Uncle Sal trusted could already be waiting to take his place.

Hiding could no longer be the plan.

I closed Salvatore’s file and returned it to my bag. The letters rested beneath it, carrying every word I might need the people I loved to understand when explanation was no longer possible.

Rurik watched me carefully. “What are you thinking?”

I lifted the strap over my shoulder and met the eyes of the man who had crossed every distance with me. Telling him the truth would give him another opportunity to place his body between me and what needed to happen.

So I gave him the answer Salvatore had once given me.

“Nothing.”

The lie came easily. And the moment it left my mouth, I finally understood my husband.

“Take me to Henry.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

December 25th, 2025...

“Take me to Henry.”

His expression didn’t change, though the silence between us did. “It’s late. He’ll be asleep.”

“I know.”

“Madigan—”

“I need to see my son.”

The words held none of the anger I had once needed to make men listen. Rurik heard what replaced it. He studied me for several seconds, then removed his phone and called Maxim Fedorov.

The city gave way slowly. Buildings thinned, streetlights spread farther apart, and the wet highway carried us north into darkness broken only by our headlights. Rurik didn’t try to reassure me. Perhaps he knew reassurance would have been an insult. He could promise guards, safe houses, weapons, and men willing to die, but Salvatore had possessed all the knowledge of a criminal dynasty and still ended beneath another man’s hands.

Power couldn’t protect someone after the truth decided they were a threat.

I pressed my forehead to the cold window and imagined Henry older. At ten, he might lose the softness in his cheeks. At sixteen, his voice would deepen. At twenty, he might stand as tall as Salvatore. He might fall in love, have his heart broken, and learn that surviving childhood didn’t mean the world was finished hurting him.

The images came easily until I tried to place myself inside them.

There was no version in which I remained.