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I find Anya sitting on her bed with her notebook open in front of her.

“You found it,” she says.

I hold up the cardigan. “In the upstairs sitting room.”

“I knew it.”

“You said you checked there.”

“I checked the table.”

“There are other pieces of furniture in a room, sweetheart.”

She takes the cardigan from me and pulls it on, completely unbothered by her flawed search methods. “Can we do the puzzle now?” she asks.

“Of course.”

I sit beside her, but my mind is still on Irina’s call, on Kirill’s behavior at the party, on Sofia’s name in Nikolai’s office.

I should tell Nikolai.

Then again, tell him what? That I overheard his sister-in-law say something suspicious while I was already sneaking around after overhearing his brother talk about his dead wife?

That sounds terrible even in my head.

My phone vibrates. I look down without thinking.

Unknown Number. For a second, I don’t move. Then I unlock the screen.

You really think blocking me works?

My fingers go cold. Another message appears before I can even breathe.

You humiliated me.

Then another.

You let that man attack me like some helpless little victim. Is that what you’re doing now? Playing weak so he feels important?

Seeing me come to my feet, Anya looks up at me.

“Elle?”

“I’m okay,” I say, already moving toward the door. “I just need to check something. Start with the first puzzle; I’ll be right back.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

I hate how false it sounds. I step into the corridor and close the door gently behind me. Another message comes.

I know who he is.

And then a barrage of messages one after the other.

Evan: You really have no clue what you’ve walked into, do you?

Evan: Volkov isn’t some rich single dad with a security problem.