I pressed my fingers to the bridge of my nose. “A week.”
“Was there anything that happened around that time that might have contributed?”
“You think she changed without reason?” I asked.
“So, something happened?”
“What happened isn’t relevant. I need to know what a husband is supposed to do to get his wife back.”
“Sir,” she said carefully. “We need context first to understand how to approach the situation.”
This was exactly why I handled my own problems. People turned clarity into procedure and called it help.
Chapter Forty-seven
Dmitri Konstantinov
At some point, the therapiststarted making sense. The first half of the call felt like being interrogated by an overly polite civilian who charged for repeating obvious things. But after nearly an hour, she finally said something useful.
Inna wasn’t creating distance because she stopped caring. She was building the wall before the damage arrived. People have been leaving her since she was young, disappearing without warning, explanation, or even the decency to say goodbye first. Years of not knowing whether her parents were dead or alive trained her to expect abandonment. Meeting her mother ripped the wound open again.
The therapist said people only reacted that way around someone whose loss would destroy them. According to her, the walls appeared around the people Inna loved most.
I leaned back in my chair.
So that was the problem.
Inna was protecting herself from me. She expected me to leave the way everyone else in her life eventually did. And according tothe therapist, the only way through it was to make her certain I wasn’t going anywhere.
Where exactly would I go?
The woman walked into my life carrying stolen money, a little brother, and enough chaos to destabilize an organized crime syndicate. Somewhere between threatening me, insulting me, and rearranging every room she entered, she turned my house into a place I actually wanted to return to. I looked forward to hearing whatever reckless thing would come out of her mouth next. Her brain never stopped moving. She attacked problems from angles most people didn’t even notice existed. And somehow, in the middle of all that noise, she occupied every available space in my head. Now I was canceling operations, calling therapists, and spending nights awake in a hammock like a man losing a war privately.
She was here. I was here. The idea of anywhere else barely made sense.
But the therapist was right about one thing. Words weren’t enough. People always used words before they disappeared. Promises meant nothing to someone whose entire life proved otherwise. It had to be something she could feel repeatedly until her brain stopped preparing for loss every second.
I checked my watch. I had been in the office for nearly two hours. Had she eaten breakfast?
I stood to go find her, but Akim entered after knocking once. He walked straight to my desk and carefully placed two photographs down.
“This man has been circling the hotel for two days.” He tapped the first picture. “The trail leads back to Iker.”
I looked at the photograph. “I bought that hotel specifically to control movement through it. How does the same man appear twice?”
“I’ve already dealt with the reception staff,” Akim said. “Mysuggestion is to move Mr. Anderson to a safe house.”
“Iker thinks Luigi hid him there. If the father stays where he is, Iker reads it as bait. That means he’s nervous enough to test the perimeter himself.” I moved around the desk. “Leave it. He isn’t awake yet?” I asked.
“I texted you last night. He woke up.”
I stopped walking and looked at him. “You text me information like that?”
Akim straightened. “I apologize, boss.”
“That is my wife’s father.” Irritation settled low in my voice. “You call me when there is information about him.”
“Yes, boss.”
