"Day two. I wanted to make sure before I brought it to you."
"How long to find something like this, normally?"
"For someone who doesn't know what they're looking at? Maybe never. The structure's reasonably clean." I shrug. "I've just been doing this long enough to know what clean is supposed to look like."
He's quiet for another moment. Then: "I'll handle Dmitri." He squeezes my shoulder. "Good work, princess. Genuinely."
The praise lands somewhere complicated. Because I am good at this. That part's true and has always been true — numbers don't lie, patterns don't hide from me, I can pull thread from a balance sheet the way some people pull thread from fabric. It's mine, this skill. I built it.
I just wish I got to use it for something that didn't end with a man like Dmitri quietly disappearing.
What would Axel think if he found out who I really am?
I shove the thought away. Axel's gone. Axel was never real. Just a moment out of time.
In the afternoons, I am expected to be the dutiful daughter. Lunch with Dad's associates' wives.Because dad is parading me for the highest bidder. Tea with the women who run the charity foundations that launder money. Smiling, nodding, playing the part of the perfect mafia princess.
They all ask the same questions. "Are you seeing anyone?"
"Your father must be so proud."
"I'm sure he'll find you a wonderful match."
A match.
Like I'm a prize mare being bred for pedigree.
I smile and deflect and count down the hours until I can escape to my room.
At night, I lie in bed and try not to think about Axel.
I fail every time.
Three weeks home, and I start feeling off.
It's subtle at first. Tiredness that sleep doesn't fix. A weird sensitivity to smells—the coffee Dad drinks every morning suddenly makes my stomach turn. Food tastes wrong.
I tell myself it's stress. Adjustment. My body protesting being back in this world after four years of freedom.
Then I miss my period.
I stare at my calendar, count backwards, count again.
No.
No, this isn't—
We used condoms. Axel used condoms.
But nothing's a hundred percent.
Fuck.
I buy a pregnancy test at a pharmacy three towns away, somewhere no one recognizes me. Pay cash for it and shove it in my purse like it's contraband.
I wait until Dad's in a meeting so he won't need me for hours. Lock myself in the bathroom. Pee on the stick with shaking hands.
Three minutes.
