Chapter 79 Nikolai
The phone buzzed at three in the morning and I was awake before the second vibration, my hand already reaching for the burner on the nightstand.
The screen showed an unknown number and an encrypted message notification, the kind that came through secure channels I'd thought nobody had access to anymore, and I sat up carefully trying not to wake Marlena sleeping beside me.
I opened the message and read it in the dim light from the screen.
Three sentences, short and precise like someone had edited them down to only what was necessary.
I know where you are. I want the ledger you took from Viktor Rousseau. Cooperate and everyone stays safe.
No signature but I didn't need one, this was Dorian making his first direct move after weeks of surveillance and gathering information.
I deleted the message immediately and watched the encryption protocol erase it from the phone's memory, then I sat there in the dark bedroom with the phone in my hand and felt my heart beating slow and steady while my mind raced through implications.
The ledger was real and I had it, locked in a safety deposit box in Luxembourg under a name that had no connection to any identity I'd ever used, and I'd kept it because it was insurance against a future I couldn't predict.
Viktor's ledger contained names, thousands of them, every government official and judge and law enforcement contact who'd taken money from his organization across five countries over twenty years. Bank account numbers. Payment schedules. Records of what each person had done to earn their corruption money. Wire transfer confirmations. Photographs. Voice recordings.
It was the kind of evidence that could destroy careers and governments and lives if it was ever released publicly, and that made it worth more than any amount of money because whoever held it had power over some of the most powerful people in Europe.
I'd taken it the night before Viktor was arrested, walked into his private office in Monaco and opened the safe I'd learned the combination to through careful observation, and I'd copied everything onto an encrypted drive while Viktor was downstairs entertaining guests who had no idea their host would be dead within hours.
I'd told myself it was insurance, protection against the people Viktor had owned who might come after me once he was gone, and that justification had felt solid enough that I'd never questioned it.
But I'd also never told Marlena about it.
Not when we were running from Prague, not when we were hiding on the island, not in all the months we'd spent in Tuscany building what felt almost like a normal life, I'd kept the ledger secret and told myself it was to protect her, that what she didn't know couldn't hurt her.
Now sitting in the dark with Dorian's message deleted but not forgotten I wondered if I'd been lying to myself, if the real reason I'd kept it secret was to protect myself, to keep one card that was entirely mine because trusting people completely had never gone well for me even when the person was Marlena.
I set the phone back on the nightstand and looked at her sleeping, her face peaceful in the faint moonlight coming through the window, one hand resting on the blanket near where Elena slept in her crib against the wall.
She trusted me now in ways she hadn't before, I could see it in how she moved through the world with me, how she didn't question when I said we needed to leave or when I chose a route or when I made decisions about our safety.
She'd given me that trust after everything I'd done to destroy it, and I was still keeping secrets from her because some part of me couldn't fully let go of the habits that had kept me alive for so long.
I got out of bed carefully and pulled on jeans and a shirt and went downstairs barefoot, moving through the dark farmhouse by memory and feel until I reached the kitchen.
I stood at the window looking out at fields silver under the moon and tried to think through what Dorian wanted and what he'd do if I didn't give it to him.
The ledger was leverage against powerful people but it was also a death sentence for whoever held it, because those same powerful people would do anything to make sure it never saw daylight, and if Dorian was asking for it that meant he either had a buyer or he planned to use it himself for blackmail.
Either way giving it to him meant putting that weapon in the hands of someone who'd already proven he was willing to surveil us and threaten us and probably worse if we didn't cooperate.
But not giving it to him meant he'd escalate, meant he'd stop watching from a distance and start taking more direct action, meant Marlena and Elena would be in danger because I was holding onto information Dorian wanted.
I heard soft footsteps on the stairs and turned to see Marlena coming down with Elena in her arms, the baby awake and fussing quietly.
"She's hungry," Marlena said, moving to the counter where we kept formula and bottles, "did something wake you?"
I watched her prepare the bottle with practiced efficiency, warming it in hot water and testing the temperature on her wrist, and I thought about telling her right now, about the message and the ledger and the choice I was facing.
But the words stuck in my throat because telling her meant admitting I'd been keeping secrets again, meant watching trust drain out of her eyes the way it had so many times before, and I was tired of being the person who disappointed her.
"Just couldn't sleep," I said instead, and the lie felt heavy on my tongue.
She glanced at me while Elena drank and I could see her reading my face the way she'd learned to do, looking for signs of what I wasn't saying.
"You're worrying about something," she said, not asking, just observing.
"Always," I said, which was true even if it wasn't the whole truth.
She settled into a chair with Elena and I watched them in the moonlight coming through the window, mother and daughter in a tableau of perfect trust and safety, and I hated myself a little for what I was about to do.
Because I'd already decided, standing at that window looking at fields I couldn't see clearly, that I wouldn't give Dorian the ledger and I wouldn't tell Marlena about it until I'd handled the situation myself.
I would find Dorian before he found us, I would deal with the threat the way I'd dealt with threats for twenty years, and Marlena and Elena would stay safe without ever knowing how close the danger had come.
It was the same pattern I'd always followed, the same instinct to handle things alone and keep people in the dark for their own protection, and some distant part of my mind knew that was exactly the problem, that I was repeating the same mistakes that had cost me so much already.
But the louder part of my mind said this was different, this was about a ledger that could get us all killed if the wrong people knew we had it, and protecting my family meant keeping some secrets even from them.
I went to the back door and stepped outside into cold evening air that made me shiver in just my thin shirt, and I stood on the stone patio looking up at stars that were brighter here than anywhere I'd been.
Through the window I could hear Marlena singing softly to Elena, a lullaby in French she'd learned from a neighbor in Tuscany, her voice carrying gentle and clear through the glass.
I stood there and listened and hated myself for the secrets I was keeping and the lies I was building and the fact that even now, even after everything, I still couldn't bring myself to trust completely.