Page 74 of Marrying the Pakhan

“You got lucky.”

“I know.”

“Harper?”

“Better than I expected. Angry, still, in places. But she stayed with me all night instead of going back to the guest room, and this morning she looks at me like she’s actually choosing to be here, not just tolerating it.” I rub a hand over my face, careful of the bruising. “We move today. To the property. I’m not waiting another night in a house with a compromised security perimeter and a brake line that proves someone can reach us here.”

“Agreed. I’ll have the team start loading by nine.”

Harper finds me in the study twenty minutes later, Ginger occupied with a cartoon in the other room, and closes the door behind her.

“Tell me the real version,” she says. “Not the one you gave Ginger.”

I do. The brake line, the timing, the fact that whoever did this had access to the club’s private lot, meaning this wasn’t a stranger watching from a distance anymore; this was someone close enough to reach directly into my life.

“That’s why we’re moving today,” she says, working it out loud. “Not just because of the attempt on Ginger. Because they’ve proven they can get to you too, wherever you actually are.”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” She nods, steadier than I expect, already thinking practically instead of spiraling. “What do I need to pack? What does Ginger need to know before we go?”

“Whatever you think she can handle. I’ll follow your lead on that, same as always.”

“I’ll tell her we’re moving somewhere with a bigger yard. Somewhere she can see the treehouse she already fell in love with.” Harper’s voice stays level, working through the logistics with the same focus she brings to everything now that she’s actually let herself be part of it. “I don’t want to scare her more than necessary.”

“Agreed.”

We spend the morning packing, with Harper handling Ginger’s room herself to keep the transition as painless as she can manage, while I coordinate with the security team to move furniture and equipment ahead of us to the new property. Dimitri splits his attention between logistics and the growing list of club employees who had lost access last night, narrowing it steadily as the day goes on.

By early afternoon, the caravan’s ready, three vehicles instead of one, security front and back, Harper and Ginger in the middle car with two of my most trusted men, myself trailing behind with Dimitri, watching the road behind us more closely than I’ve watched anything in years.

The drive out takes just under an hour, city thinning into hills, until the stone house finally comes into view at the end of its long private drive, exactly as defensible in person as it looked in the photographs.

Ginger’s out of the car before it’s fully stopped, sprinting toward the treehouse visible from the back windows, and for a moment, watching her run free across an open yard without a single visible worry, the entire weight of the last twenty-four hours eases slightly, replaced by something closer to relief.

Harper watches her too, then looks at me, taking in the bandage still taped across my nose, the careful way I’m still favoring my shoulder.

“We made it,” she says.

“We made it. For today.”

“For today’s enough.” She takes my hand, careful of the bruising along my knuckles I hadn’t even mentioned to her yet. “Tomorrow, we figure out the rest. Tonight, I just want to get Ginger settled and actually sleep somewhere that isn’t waiting for another car to come through a wall.”

I squeeze her hand, watching Ginger disappear into the treehouse, and for the first time since the accident, I let myself believe, even briefly, that today’s move might buy us the time we need.

The investigation doesn’t pause just because we’ve moved. Neither does the danger. But tonight, at least, we face both of them from somewhere considerably harder to reach.

36

HARPER

Five days in, and I’m still finding new rooms.

This morning it’s a small library off the second-floor landing, shelves half full already, a window seat overlooking the drive that I claim immediately as mine, mental note made to bring a blanket up here before winter actually arrives.

Viktor finds me there, coffee in each hand, and passes one over without asking if I want it, which he knows by now.

“You’ve been quiet about the house,” he says. “Good quiet or bad quiet?”