Chapter 6 - Someone Inside the Estate
By sunrise Nikolai had transformed the library into a command center.
Maps covered the table.
Security feeds filled two monitors.
Dmitri had a laptop open beside a list of staff access records.
Vera stood at the window drinking coffee and feeling increasingly like the only civilian in a war room.
She disliked it.
Not because she was afraid.
Because everyone except her seemed to believe her role was to remain still while men decided what happened next.
She turned.
“I’m going to the burned building.”
“No,” Nikolai said.
“You didn’t even look up.”
“I didn’t need to.”
“They left the invitation for me too.”
“That changes nothing.”
“It changes everything.”
Now he looked up.
“Explain.”
“They’re expecting you to hide me.”
“Correct.”
“So they’ve planned around that.”
Dmitri glanced between them.
Vera continued.
“They know your habits. They knew I shop Thursdays. They knew about your cameras, your frequencies, your greenhouse access. They are not improvising.”
Nikolai stood.
“What are you suggesting?”
“That we stop being predictable.”
“You attending their meeting is exactly what they want.”
“I didn’t say I would attend it.”
Vera pointed at the map.
“I said we should go to the property.”
“Difference?”
“Now. In daylight. Before they’re ready.”
Dmitri slowly smiled.
Nikolai noticed.
“Do not encourage her.”
“I said nothing.”
“Your face did.”
Vera crossed her arms.
“She has a point,” Dmitri admitted.
Nikolai stared at him.
Dmitri’s smile disappeared.
Two hours later they were driving toward the burned estate.
Vera did not mention that Nikolai had surrendered only after forty minutes of arguing.
The property had once been a hunting lodge.
Now blackened beams rose against a gray sky.
The fire smelled old but still clung to the air.
“Stay beside me,” Nikolai said.
“I’m not six.”
“Today I don’t care.”
She almost objected.
Then she noticed his hand.
Not on a weapon.
Open at his side.
Close enough that he could reach her immediately.
Fear again.
Vera stepped nearer without commenting.
Inside, investigators had marked several areas.
The note had been found near the fireplace.
The photographs on a table.
Vera examined the ground.
Nikolai noticed.
“What?”
“Boot prints.”
“Investigators.”
“Some.”
She crouched beside a wall.
“This one isn’t.”
The tread was narrow.
Deep heel.
The same general size as the prints beyond the greenhouse.
Dmitri photographed it.
Vera followed the faint marks toward the rear of the building.
They ended beside a collapsed cabinet.
Something metallic glinted beneath ash.
Vera reached toward it.
Nikolai caught her wrist.
“Don’t.”
His touch stopped both of them.
He released her immediately.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
Dmitri retrieved the object with gloves.
A small brass key.
Attached to it was a metal tag.
V-17.
Nikolai frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Vera knew.
“Valve seventeen.”
“What?”
“Our irrigation system.”
The estate used numbered underground valves across hundreds of acres.
Valve seventeen controlled water to the north gardens.
Near her cottage.
They returned immediately.
Valve seventeen was buried beneath a green utility cover near a row of dormant hydrangeas.
Dmitri opened it.
Inside, taped beneath the lid, was a memory card.
Nikolai looked at Vera.
“Stay back.”
She ignored him.
Security scanned the device before loading it onto an isolated laptop.
The card contained one video.
Thirty-four seconds.
A man in shadow.
His voice electronically altered.
“Nikolai Voss. You built walls around everything you own.”
Vera’s stomach tightened.
“But walls create blind spots.”
A photograph of Vera appeared.
“You have forty-eight hours to surrender the Marrow shipping contracts.”
Nikolai’s expression turned cold.
“Or the woman becomes the cost.”
The video ended.
Vera stared at the black screen.
“Marrow?”
Dmitri explained.
“Three Atlantic freight routes. Worth hundreds of millions over ten years.”
“So this is business.”
“No,” Nikolai said.
His voice was quiet.
“This is humiliation.”
Vera looked at him.
“They think if you surrender, every rival sees that you can be controlled through me.”
“Yes.”
“And if you don’t?”
Nobody answered.
Vera already understood.
She turned toward the mansion.
“We aren’t giving them anything.”
Nikolai’s voice stopped her.
“This is not your decision.”
She spun around.
“It has my face in the video.”
“The contracts are mine.”
“My safety is mine.”
Their eyes locked.
Nikolai walked toward her.
“You think I care about contracts?”
“Then what are we arguing about?”
“I am trying to make you understand that if surrendering every company I own keeps you alive, I will do it.”
Vera froze.
Dmitri looked away.
Nikolai seemed to realize what he had admitted.
Too late.
“You would give them everything?”
“If necessary.”
“Why?”
“Vera.”
“Say it.”
Before he could answer, Dmitri’s phone rang.
He checked the screen.
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
He held the phone toward Nikolai.
Security access records.
One employee badge had opened the greenhouse maintenance cabinet at 1:14 a.m. four nights earlier.
The badge belonged to a man named Peter Halden.
One of the guards assigned to Vera yesterday.
May you like
The same Peter who had stood outside the greenhouse pretending to protect her.
And according to the mansion’s camera system, Peter was currently nowhere to be found.
