“Viktor will brief you on the evening’s requirements,” I said. “You will follow them without deviation.”
“Yes.”
I looked at her for a moment longer. I hated how she both sounded and looked like a captive with no choice. But I couldn’t help it at the moment.
I stood.
“Get some sleep,” I said.
She looked up at me with the expression that did not have a name.
I left the library. In my office, I called Alexei.
“The Vasin event on Friday. I want the venue’s security layout by noon. Full assessment.”
There was a pause.
“Elena?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a significant signal.”
“It’s intended to be,” I said.
“Volkov will see it as a provocation.”
“Volkov will see it as a demonstration,” I said. “There’s a difference. He’s been arguing that she’s my vulnerability. I intend to demonstrate that she’s my position.” I paused. “Prepare the event documentation. I want the guest list cross-referenced against the known Volkov adjacencies by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Done,” Alexei said.
I ended the call.
Volkov had called Elena a matter of ongoing relevance. He had looked at my marriage and seen leverage. Had seen an emotional coordinate, a pressure point, the specific weakness ofa man who had allowed something to matter that powerful men were not supposed to let matter.
He was not wrong about the mattering. He was catastrophically wrong about what it meant.
I turned from the window.
Friday.
Chapter Nineteen–Elena
Viktor’s briefing lasted forty minutes.
He conducted it in the manor’s secondary sitting room with a floor plan of the Vasin event venue, a printed guest list with certain names highlighted in two different colors–one for Golovin-adjacent, one for the category he described asflagged for monitoring–and the specific professional thoroughness of a man who considered adequate preparation a moral obligation.
I listened and asked questions. I did not pretend that the questions were unnecessary. This was the thing I had resolved in the library after Mikhail left–that passivity was no longer available to me as a default, that whatever I was doing goingforward would be done with the full engagement of a person who understood the stakes rather than the partial engagement of one who was trying to minimize her own footprint.
Viktor looked faintly surprised by the questions. Not displeased. Surprised.
“The northeast quadrant of the ballroom,” I said, pointing at the floor plan. “The access corridor there. Where does it go?”
“Service access. Kitchen, then the loading dock.” He paused. “Why?”
“Because if someone needed to move quickly from that part of the room without using the main entrance, that’s the route.” I looked at the floor plan. “I want to know where it comes out.”
Viktor looked at me with the watchful eyes. Then he pointed to a location on the plan. “Loading dock exits to the east alley. We’ll have two men on the alley.”
