And across the table, for one suspended second, our eyes meet.
He knows I understand.
I know he saw it before I did.
Everything in him changes. Not his face exactly. His body. The ease is gone. The man sitting at lunch with my children disappears.
Another shot cracks through the air.
We’re under attack.
25
ROMAN
I don’t think.There isn’t time for that.
I press the SOS button on my phone that sends an immediate text to Mikhail with my location.
The glass by my hand explodes, and Katerina’s face changes across the table in the same instant mine does. She knows. Not what, not yet, but enough. Enough to grab for Sofia before the next round starts.
I’m out of the chair before the sound is finished.
“Nikolai, down.”
He obeys immediately.
I grab the back of his jacket and pull him with me as I drop low beside the table. Katerina has Sofia half under her already, one hand over the back of the girl’s head, the other braced on the grass. Vika is screaming. Useless, high-pitched, furious screaming, as if outrage can stop bullets.
“Down,” I snap at her.
She looks at me like she wants to argue.
Then another shot tears through the edge of the table, and she finally drops.
The angle is wrong.
That’s the first thing I notice once everyone is low.
The shooter isn’t far enough out for a perimeter hit. The rounds are coming low and fast from inside the grounds or just beyond the hedge line, not from the road, not from the river. Whoever took the shot had line of sight on the lawn and knew exactly where lunch was set.
“Inside,” I say.
Katerina looks at me like she wants to argue.
I don’t give her the chance. I grab the back of Vika’s arm, haul her up when she freezes, and shove all three of them toward the terrace doors while staying between them and the line of fire. Another shot cracks over us and buries itself in the hedge behind the table.
Whoever it is, they’re losing nerve. Or time.
The children move. Katerina half-drags, half-carries Sofia. Nikolai runs low beside her. Vika stumbles once in the grass, catches herself, and keeps moving. I stay behind them until they make it to the doors, then push them inside and turn back toward the lawn.
There’s nothing. No movement in the trees now. No second shooter.
Still, I go after them.
I cut across the lawn, vault the low hedge, and hit the outer path at a run. One of the side gates is open by six inches. That tells me more than the shooting did. Someone came in knowing exactly where not to be seen, fired just enough to send a message, then got out before the house security could close in.
I follow the path to the rear service lane, but by the time I get there, it’s empty. No car. No bike. No footman running. Only the river wind, the gravel, and the ugly certainty that whoever did this knew the compound better than they should.
