The buzzer sounds from the lobby. My phone rings simultaneously — security. I'm on my feet before the second ring, the warm man at the breakfast island replaced by theboss in the space between heartbeats. She's seen this shift. She watches it happen and I see her register the temperature drop.
"Sir, a courier delivery. Envelope addressed to Mrs. Konstantinos. No return address. We've scanned it — paper only, no devices."
"Hold it. I'm coming down."
I don't go down. I send Lex. Three minutes later he's at my door with a sealed envelope, holding it by the edges. I open it.
A photograph.
Siobhan. Walking into the penthouse building. Last night. The time stamp reads 11:07pm — seven minutes after she left her bedroom, walked thirty feet of hallway, and knocked on my door. The angle is from across the street, slightly elevated. Second or third floor of the building opposite. Telephoto lens. High resolution. She's wearing the silk nightgown under a coat she must have thrown on for the walk through the lobby.
On the back, in handwriting I've seen on threat letters and execution orders: "?? ?? ????????????, ??? ?? ????."
You're not the only one who doesn't sleep.
The morning dies in my hands.
Not the photograph — what the photograph means. Viktor has an operative who can physically approach this building, deliver an envelope to my doorman, and walk away. Someone who either bypassed or was invisible to the security rotation I designed. Someone who was across the street last night with a camera while my wife was walking through the lobby in silk.
"The building opposite," I say to Lex. "Second or third floor. Short-term rental. Find it. Find who leased it. Find what else they photographed."
"Already on it."
I look at Siobhan. She's standing at the island in my shirt with coffee in her hand and morning light behind her and she'sreading my face the way she reads every room — catching the data before the emotion, processing the threat before the fear.
I show her the photograph.
She looks at herself entering the building she now calls home, photographed by a man who wants to use her to destroy me. She studies the angle. The timestamp. The Russian handwriting.
"So he's watching."
"He's watching."
"Second floor of the building across the street. The angle suggests a corner unit with a line of sight to the entrance. Short-term rental — corporate lease, probably. Untraceable through standard channels."
I stare at her. She just conducted a threat assessment of her own surveillance photograph over breakfast coffee.
"Then we stop giving him time to watch."
The warmth of the morning is gone. The shower, the breakfast, the word "together" — all of it suspended, held in amber while the war reasserts itself. The woman across from me in my shirt with wet hair and morning freckles just told me to go on offense.
She's not afraid. She's angry.
And Viktor Reznikov has no idea what he's just woken up.
Chapter 19
Siobhan
The Target
* * *
The penthouse is a fortress now.
I count the guards because counting is what I do when I can't control anything else. Four outside the building on rotating posts. Two in the lobby. One at the desk, one by the elevator bank. The camera coverage has been tripled: every entrance, every stairwell, the rooftop access that Nico sealed personally with a lock that requires both a code and a key.
Twenty-four hours ago, this was our home. The kitchen where he washed my coffee cup. The hallway where I walked barefoot in silk. The bedroom where he said "stay" and I said "okay" and the word meant everything.