What He Came For

I got it from under the mattress. Stood up. Opened the door.

Three weeks. He looked exactly the same. That shouldn't have been allowed.

Dark coat, no tie, filling up Camille's small hallway like he'd been standing there for years. His eyes moved over me the way they always did fast, quiet, filing things away. I'd seen him do it to other people. Took me longer than it should have to realize he did it to me too.

"You look tired."

I didn't answer that.

"Can I come in."

"No."

He didn't try to come in. Hands in his pockets, weight back, just waiting. Viktor could outwait anyone. I'd seen him do it in rooms full of people who thought they had the upper hand.

"How did you get in," I said.

"Camille let me in."

I looked at the door. Then past him down the hall. Then back.

"What do you want."

"How did you know I was here."

"You always came here."

True. Also not the point. He knew that and said it anyway, which was its own kind of answer.

I waited.

His eyes went past me briefly. The pages on the floor. The open laptop. I watched him clock it all and file it and say nothing about any of it.

He'd always been good at reading rooms. Walked into a space and already knew it what was off, what was hidden, what someone had moved before he got there. It was the thing that made him good at what he did. It was also the thing that made him dangerous to lie to.

"I want to talk," he said.

"You had three weeks to want that."

He didn't argue. That was almost worse.

"You sent Dimitri," I said.

"I know."

"With an NDA."

"I know." He pressed his mouth together. "Legal wanted it handled before—"

"Before the announcement." I folded my arms. "I saw the news. Congratulations."

Something crossed his face. I caught the edge of it before it was gone. I'd spent ten years learning to read him and he'd spent ten years learning to keep me out. We were about even.

"That's why I came," he said. "You should have heard it from me first."

"But I didn't."

He didn't have an answer for that.

"I heard it from a news alert," I said. "Forty minutes after I left your house. I was still in the car."

He looked at the floor. Just for a second. Viktor Volkov looking at the floor was rare enough that I noticed it every time.

"I handled this badly," he said.

"Yes."

"I know that."

"Do you." I looked at him hard. "Which part. The studio. The tattoo. Dimitri. The NDA. The news alert while I was still in the car. Pick one and tell me you know that."

He was quiet.

"You don't get to show up here at whatever time this is and tell me you handled it badly and have that be enough. That's not enough Viktor."

"I know it isn't."

"Then why are you here."

"Something is wrong and I don't know who else to bring it to."

I heard that. Felt it go somewhere it shouldn't. Kept my face where it was.

"Something is wrong," I said.

"With the merger. With the legal structures. Numbers that don't line up. I ask and I get answers that sound right until I'm alone and I can't hold onto any of it." He stopped. Exhaled. "I'm being managed. Someone in my own house is managing me and I can't think clearly enough to—"

"Viktor."

He stopped.

"Why me," I said. "You have a team. Lawyers. Security."

"My lawyer set this deal up."

I went very still.

"He structured the whole thing. And three days ago I found a clause buried in the merger agreement that hands operational control to the Conti Group within eighteen months of the marriage." He said it quietly. Like he'd been sitting with it and it had gotten heavier each time. "Not partial control. All of it."

I said nothing.

"I confronted him," Viktor said. "He had an explanation. Smooth, detailed, made complete sense." A pause. "I went home and it was gone. All of it. Just sitting there knowing something had happened and I couldn't find where."

I wasn't moving. Wasn't giving him anything. The envelope was right behind me and I needed him looking at my face not the room.

"Get a new lawyer," I said carefully.

"I tried. Two days ago. He called me before I even made the appointment."

He was looking at me like he was trying to get through something. I didn't move to help him.

"I don't know how he knew," he said. "I made one call. One. He picked up like he'd been expecting it."

The hallway was quiet. Somewhere in the apartment the dog shifted.

"Viktor," I said slowly. "Why did you really come here tonight."

He pulled something from his coat. Took his time doing it.

"Found this in my father's desk," he said. "There's a compartment. I missed it the first time I looked."

He held the photograph out between us like it was something that might go off.

I looked at the photograph.

I looked at Viktor.

Ten years I'd spent learning his face and I still couldn't tell if he already knew the answer.