Chapter 1 - The Man Waiting in the Dark
At 2:07 in the morning, Vera Sullivan pushed open the side entrance of Nikolai Voss’s lakeside estate and discovered the most dangerous man she had ever met sitting alone in the dark.
No guards.
No assistants.
No lights except the silver glow coming through the tall windows.
Nikolai sat at the kitchen island with his jacket thrown over the back of a chair, the collar of his white shirt open and his black tie hanging loose around his neck.
He looked as if he had been there for hours.
Waiting.
For her.
Vera stopped with one hand still wrapped around the door handle.
Rainwater dripped from the ends of her dark hair onto her beige trench coat.
“You know,” she said, “normal employers usually leave a note when the groundskeeper is late.”
Nikolai didn’t smile.
That was when Vera knew something was wrong.
Three years working on his property had taught her that Nikolai Voss had several kinds of silence.
There was the silence he used with businessmen who bored him.
The silence he used with armed men who had disappointed him.
And there was this one.
This was the silence of a man trying not to say the first thing that came into his head.
Vera closed the door.
“My truck broke down.”
“I know.”
“Of course you know.”
“Route Six. Four miles west of town.”
Vera stared at him.
“How do you know that?”
Nikolai stood.
He was a large man even without the reputation attached to him. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair pushed back from a face that looked almost elegant until a person noticed the scars, the controlled eyes, and the tattoos disappearing beneath his shirt.
Tonight, however, none of that bothered Vera as much as the answer he didn’t give.
“Nikolai.”
“Dmitri found your truck.”
“You sent Dmitri looking for me?”
“You were six hours late.”
“I am thirty years old.”
“Twenty-nine.”
“That is somehow worse.”
His jaw moved.
Vera took off her wet coat.
“You were worried.”
“No.”
She almost laughed.
“Nikolai.”
“I was irritated.”
“You had six men search the highway because you were irritated?”
“Eight.”
She blinked.
“Eight?”
“Two went into town.”
Vera stared at him for three seconds.
Then she started laughing.
It was either laugh or throw something.
Nikolai did neither.
His expression remained hard.
“What?” Vera asked.
“You need to carry a satellite phone.”
“No.”
“I haven’t explained—”
“You tried this last month.”
“The circumstances have changed.”
“The circumstances are that you enjoy knowing where everyone is.”
“The circumstances,” Nikolai said quietly, “are that there are people watching this estate.”
The humor vanished.
Rain tapped softly against the kitchen windows.
Vera folded her arms.
“What people?”
“The Helian Group.”
She knew the name.
Everyone who worked for Nikolai knew enough not to ask about the Helian Group.
They owned shipping companies, construction firms, private security businesses and, according to rumors nobody repeated around polite company, half a dozen enterprises that were considerably less legal.
Their rivalry with Nikolai had existed long before Vera arrived.
She had always considered it part of his world.
A distant storm.
Nothing to do with her.
“They’ve been watching the estate for eleven days,” Nikolai continued.
“And?”
“They’ve photographed vehicles entering the property.”
“So call the police.”
Nikolai gave her a look.
“Right. Stupid suggestion.”
“Not stupid.”
“Just inconvenient for whatever mysterious empire you’re running?”
He ignored that.
“You leave the property alone. You shop alone. You work near the north tree line alone.”
“I’m the groundskeeper.”
“I am aware.”
“Then why would they care about me?”
Something changed in his eyes.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
But Vera noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re terrible at lying.”
“I am extremely good at lying.”
“Not to me.”
For once, Nikolai had no answer.
Vera walked toward the counter and found a black satellite phone sitting beside a set of keys.
She picked it up.
“No.”
“Take it.”
“No.”
“It has emergency communication even when cellular towers—”
“No.”
“And a location beacon.”
She slowly raised her eyes.
“A what?”
“A tracking feature.”
Vera set the phone down.
Very carefully.
“You want me to voluntarily carry a device that tells you exactly where I am?”
“Yes.”
“You are out of your mind.”
“It cannot be disabled.”
“That sentence did not help.”
“It wasn’t intended to.”
Vera picked up the phone again.
For one brief, satisfying second, she considered walking outside and throwing it directly into the lake.
Nikolai apparently read her expression.
“It’s waterproof.”
She glared at him.
“You planned for me to throw it in the lake?”
“I considered the possibility.”
“Good night, Nikolai.”
“Vera.”
She stopped at the doorway.
His voice had changed.
The command was gone.
For just a moment, something else replaced it.
“Please.”
Vera looked back.
Nikolai Voss did not say please.
Not to employees.
Not to business associates.
Possibly not to God.
Yet there he stood, one hand resting against the kitchen island, asking instead of ordering.
“Something happened,” Vera said.
His face closed instantly.
“What happened?”
“Nothing you need to worry about tonight.”
She hated that answer.
“Nikolai—”
“Go upstairs. Sleep.”
“I live in the cottage.”
“Not tonight.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“My cottage is seventy yards away.”
“Tonight, you stay inside the main house.”
“No.”
His patience visibly strained.
“There are guest rooms.”
“And there is a perfectly good bed in my perfectly good cottage.”
“You are not going back outside.”
Vera stepped closer.
“You don’t get to decide where I sleep.”
“No,” he said.
The answer surprised her.
Then he added, “But I can ask.”
Something about his expression unsettled her more than an order would have.
Vera had seen Nikolai angry.
She had once watched him dismiss three executives without raising his voice.
She had seen armed men enter the estate after midnight and watched Nikolai walk toward them as casually as another man might walk toward a dinner reservation.
Fear did not belong on him.
Yet now she recognized it.
Not panic.
Not weakness.
Fear controlled so tightly that it had hardened into anger.
And somehow it was connected to her.
Vera looked toward the rain-blackened windows.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing.”
“Another bad lie.”
He looked away.
That told her enough.
She picked up the satellite phone.
Nikolai’s gaze dropped to it.
“Don’t look pleased. I’m carrying it until morning.”
“That’s sufficient.”
“And if I discover you’re tracking me when there’s no emergency, I’m putting it underneath the lawn mower.”
“It would probably survive.”
“Then I’ll use the wood chipper.”
A faint hint of amusement finally touched his mouth.
There he was.
The impossible man she knew.
Vera headed toward the guest staircase.
Halfway there she stopped.
“Nikolai?”
“Yes?”
“Why were you really sitting here?”
The amusement vanished.
He looked toward the clock.
2:14 a.m.
Then at her.
“I wanted to see you walk through that door.”
The simplicity of the answer stole her reply.
Vera went upstairs without another word.
She slept badly.
At dawn, she looked from the guest-room window toward the lake and saw six armed guards moving along the tree line.
By breakfast there were eight.
By nine, there were ten.
And just before noon, Dmitri intercepted her beside the equipment shed.
The normally easygoing Russian was not smiling.
“Vera.”
“What?”
“They found something.”
She lowered the pruning shears.
“Where?”
“One of Nikolai’s old properties burned last night.”
Her stomach tightened.
“What did they find?”
Dmitri looked toward the mansion.
Then back at her.
“A message.”
“What kind of message?”
He hesitated.
And in that hesitation, Vera understood why Nikolai Voss had spent the entire night waiting in a dark kitchen.
Dmitri’s next words confirmed it.
May you like
“They left your name.”
And suddenly the satellite phone in Vera’s coat pocket felt much heavier than it had the night before.
