I look past her for a second, at the west hedge, the broken glass, the line of sight. Cheap rifle, sloppy exit, too much access. Someone got inside this property or close enough to use it. That’s still bothering me. It should be bothering her father more too.
When I look back at her, she’s still staring at me with that bright, furious look that means she’s one thing away from making this worse for both of us.
“I should tell them who you are,” she says.
The words are quiet.
I say nothing.
She takes my silence for space and pushes into it.
“I should tell everyone,” she says. “Tell my father, tell Vika, tell anyone who’s stupid enough to sit near you. Let them all hear that you’re a Morozov and see how they like that.”
For a second, I just look at her.
But she keeps going. “You’re the reason Lev is dead.”
Everything in me goes still. So, this is about Lev. Of course. I should have known better. It’s about Lev, the father of her children, the one she lost, and she thinks it’s because of me. But I’m not her villain.
“No,” I say.
She opens her mouth, ready to keep going, and I cut across her.
“No.”
The second time I say it, she stops.
I step closer.
Not enough to touch her. Enough that she has to lift her chin to keep looking at me the way she is.
“I was not behind Lev’s death.”
Her eyes flash. “Why would I believe that?”
“Because I’m telling you the truth.”
“Now?” she says. “Now you care about the truth?”
I let that go. There are ten things I could say to that, and all of them would make this uglier. But instead, I tell the truth.
“Someone I trusted sold me out. After that, everything started moving at once. Old deals, old grudges, people picking sides, people getting killed because they were in the wrong place or backing the wrong man. Lev got caught in that.”
Her face hardens. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the truth.” I keep my voice flat. “I didn’t send anyone after him. I didn’t set him up. By the time I knew where things had gone, he was already dead.”
For a second she doesn’t say anything. She’s still furious, but now she’s actually listening.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to stop saying I killed him when I didn’t.”
She folds her arms tighter across herself. “Convenient.”
“No,” I say. “Convenient would be lying to you.”
For years I kept that part buried. I let people think what they wanted because admitting I’d been betrayed felt too close to weakness, and weakness is the one thing men like me don’t survive being known for.
